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THE    INFL     _ 

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ENGLISH    CHURCH  :i|B 

ANGLO- SAXON  pi 
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5Sje  Influence  of 

<Sj)e  6nglisj)  Oburcj) 

on  jBCnglo-jSaifon 

Oibili^ation 


BEING  THE 

LECTURES  DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE 

CHURCHMAN'S  LEAGUE  OF  THE 

DISTRICT  OF  COLUMBIA 

IN   1903 


NEW  YORK: 

PUBLISHER 

FOURTH  AVE.   AND  TWENTY-SECOND   ST. 

MCMIII 


n  c  c 


-r4 


(Bontentis 

Hetture  I 

PAGE 

The  British  and  English  Churches  ....       3 
The  Rev,  Prof,  Thomas  Richey,  D.D. 

%tttntt  II 

The  Church  as  the  Educator  of  the  People  .     23 
The  Rev,  W,  J.  Guerry,  B,D, 

lecture  III 

The  Church   as    the   Champion    of   the   Peo- 
ple's Rights 57 

The  Rev,  WUliam  M,  Clark. 

Hetture  IV 

The  Principle  of  National  Churches     ...     79 
The  Rev.  Prof.   William  C.  Clark,  M,A,, 
D.D.,  LL.D.,  D.C.L.,  F.R.S.C, 

Stecture  V 

The  Church  and  the  Spirit  of  Liberty      .     .     99 
Mr,  Joseph  Packard. 


28983 


preface 

THE  question  of  the  mutual  relations  between 
Christianity  and  Civilization,  of  which  the 
history  of  the  English  people  affords  many 
instructive  illustrations,  is  one  of  peculiar  interest 
and  importance,  and  has  often  claimed  the  attention 
of  thoughtful  minds.  While  progress  in  Civilization 
may  be  recognized  as  being  a  part  of  the  Divine  order 
of  things,  yet  there  is  much  in  the  principles  of  Civ- 
ilization which  is  antagonistic  to  Christianity,  so  that 
the  inevitable  conflict,  so  constantly  spoken  of  in  the 
New  Testament,  between  Christianity  and  the  World, 
is  continually  existing.  The  purifying  and  refining 
force  of  Christianity,  however,  has  been  so  felt  by 
Civilization,  that  it  is  an  undeniable  fact  of  history 
that  the  most  civilized  nations  are  the  most  Christian, 
and  that  Civilization  reaches  its  highest  point  in  those 
nations  which  possess  the  highest  ideals  of  Christian 
duty  and  strive  to  carry  their  principles  into  action. 

We  shall  plainly  see,  if  we  read  aright  the  lessons 
of  the  past,  that  true  progress  will  be  found  in  the  end 
to  consist,  not  in  the  mere  attainment  of  material 
prosperity,  but  in  the  development  of  character,  and 
that  no  nation  has  ever  permanently  flourished  in 
which  that  principle  has  been  lost  sight  of  or  dis- 
regarded. 

The  purpose  of  these  lectures,  delivered  in  Saint 


VI  INFLUENCE    OF    THE    ENGLISH    CHUECH 

Thomas's  Church,  Washington,  has  been  to  show  the 
powerful  part  Christianity,  as  it  has  found  expression 
in  the  English  Church,  has  played  in  the  development 
of  Anglo-Saxon  Civilization.  There  have  been  times, 
indeed,  when  the  Church  of  England  has  not  been 
wholly  faithful  to  her  mission,  and  has  experienced 
the  bitter  consequences  of  her  failure,  but  notwith- 
standing, she  has  never  long  forsaken  her  true  ideals, 
and  in  training  the  people  in  the  Christian  faith,  has 
produced  a  noble  type  of  Christian  character  and  high 
ethical  national  standards,  which  go  to  create  the 
strength  of  the  nation  to-day. 

It  is  worthy  of  observation  that  the  closeness  of 
the  ties  existing  between  Church  and  State,  which  in 
our  own  country  does  not  impede  the  Church's  free- 
dom, gave,  nevertheless,  opportunities  of  vast  personal 
influence  upon  the  religion  of  the  nation,  at  periods 
when  leadership  was  sorely  needed,  to  the  temporal 
and  ecclesiastical  rulers,  not  always  wisely  exercised, 
but  in  the  hands  of  great  and  good  men,  productive  of 
incalculable  benefit. 

Beginning  with  the  formation  of  the  English  na- 
tion, when  Christianity,  with  its  universal  adaptabil- 
ity and  wonderful  unifying  power,  helped  to  weld  the 
different  racial  elements  into  one  homogeneous  whole, 
the  lectures  trace  the  Church's  influence  upon  the  de- 
velopment of  the  English  people  in  their  educational, 
social,  and  political  relations.  As  we  approach  more 
recent  times,  we  are  shown  the  influence  of  English 
Churchmen  in  our  own  land,  before  the  Revolution 
as  well  as  in  the  early  days  of  the  republic,  reminding 


PREFACE  VII 

US  of  the  debt  we  owe  to  Anglo-Saxon  Christianity, 
and  that  we  too  may  regard  with  thankfulness  our 
share  in  the  inheritance  of  the  great  and  historic 
Church  of  England. 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  the  present  volume  em- 
braces within  its  scope  an  extensive  field,  highly  in- 
teresting and  suggestive,  full  of  matter  profitable  for 
meditation,  and  presenting  for  consideration  some  of 
those  wider  historical  aspects  of  Christianity  so  often 
inadequately  realized. 

In  their  treatment  of  the  wide  range  of  subjects 
discussed,  the  views  of  the  different  lecturers  will  be 
found  to  have  been  clearly  and  ably  stated,  and  the 
themes  assigned  handled  with  learning  and  literary 
skill  by  their  respective  authors. 


LECTURE  I 


/ 


LECTURE  I 

IT  will  be  a  help  to  a  clearer  discrimination  of  tlie 
:  nature  and  origin  of  the  British,  and  English 
churches,  if  it  be  kept  in  mind,  from  the  outset, 
that  the  one  was  Celtic  and  tribal  in  its  organization ; 
the  other  German,  and  Teutonic  It  was  not  a  differ- 
ence in  name  only,  but  of  priority  in  point  of  time, 
and  in  matters  of  feeling  and  temperament.  The 
land  we  are  now  accustomed  to  call  England  was  first 
known  as  Britain;  and  its  inhabitants  were  called 
Britons  in  Wales,  Scots  in  Ireland,  and  Cymry  in 
Cornwall.  In  the  course  of  time  a  combination  of 
these  Celtic  churches  grew  up — the  British  includ- 
ing the  Church  in  Wales;  the  Irish  and  the  Scotch 
forming  a  communion  of  their  own.  The  Irish  agreed 
with  the  Britons  on  the  Easter  question,  and  in  the 
form  of  the  Celtic  tonsure,  while  the  British  Church 
was  organized  on  the  basis  of  a  diocesan  episcopate; 
in  the  Scottish  Church,  bishops,  though  respected  in 
their  office,  were  employed  by  the  Abbot  of  the  Mon- 
astery and  a  Council  of  Senior  Monks  only  to  perform 
episcopal  functions,  such  as  ordination  and  the  dedi- 
cation of  churches :  and  as  missionaries  in  the  founda- 
tion of  a  liew  Christian  province.  Christianity  was 
spread  by  means  of  branch  houses  and  preaching  sta- 
tions. The  Irish  monks,  as  the  result  of  clan  organi- 
zation, knew  nothing  whatever  of  local  rights  or  terri- 

3 


*  INFLUENCE   OF    THE   ENGLISH   CHURCH 

torial  limits.  Their  acts  were  done  in  behalf  of  the 
Monastic  community,  and  on  the  responsibility  of  the 
Abbot.  The  Monastery,  in  other  words,  and  not  the 
Diocese,  was  the  unit  of  organization. 

When  it  is  claimed,  as  it  sometimes  is,  that  "the 
Church  of  Wales  is  older  than  the  Church  of  England, 
and  has  the  proud  distinction  of  standing  in  the  van- 
guard of  the  Church  of  England  and  Wales,  not  only 
in  preserving  a  complete  ecclesiastical  unity,  but  in 
being  the  mother,  rather  than  the  daughter  of  the 
Church  of  England,"  the  claim,  so  far  as  the  order  of 
time  is  concerned,  is  literally  true.  Whatever  may  be 
the  legendary  character  of  the  story  of  Joseph  of  Ari- 
mathea,  and  the  Holy  Grael,  or  of  Prince  Arthur 
and  the  Knights  of  the  Eound  Table,  we  have  the 
indisputable  testimony  of  a  Council  of  the  Church 
held  at  Aries  in  Gaul  in  the  year  a.d.  314,  that 
three  bishops  from  Britain  were  present  at  the  coun- 
cil and  took  part  in  its  deliberations,  viz:  Eborius 
of  York,  Eestitutus  of  London,  and  Adelfius  of 
(probably)  Caerleon-on-Usk,  a  priest  and  a  deacon 
being  also  in  attendance.  !N'ot  only  is  it  true,  then, 
that  the  British  Church  at  the  time  was  rec- 
ognized as  part  and  parcel  of  the  Church  Catholic: 
but  in  the  adherence  given  to  the  keeping  of  Easter 
in  the  first  Canon  passed,  and  the  necessity  affirmed  in 
the  twentieth  Canon  of  the  presence  of  not  less  than 
three,  and,  if  possible,  seven  bishops  to  take  part  in 
laying  on  of  hands,  we  have  the  discrimination  made 
between  the  British  Church,  in  its  corporate  char- 
acter, and  the  Irish  and  Scottish  missionary  organiza- 


THE   BEITISH   AND    ENGLISH    CHURCHES  O 

tion,  of  a  later  date,  when,  through  the  settling  of  the 
Jutes  and  Saxons  and  Engles  in  the  year  a.d.  449,  the 
British  Church  found  itself  no  longer  the  Church  of 
Britain,  but  the  Church  of  the  British  limited  to  one 
comer  of  Britain:  the  Saxon  having  gradually  ob- 
tained possession  of  the  eastern,  southern,  and  midland 
parts  of  the  country  to  be  hereafter  known  as  Eng- 
land. It  was  then,  the  natural  antipathy  between 
conquering  Saxons  and  Engles,  and  the  conquered 
Britons  began  to  make  itself  felt. 

But  if  the  British  Church  failed  in  its  mission  as 
an  organized  church,  the  Irish  Church  made  the  most 
of  the  opportunities  placed  within  its  reach  to  carry 
oil  the  work  under  another  form,  when  through  the 
agency  of  Saint  Columba  in  the  year  663,  it  succeeded 
gradually  in  restoring  Christianity  to  the  low- 
lands of  Scotland  and  the  northern  districts  of 
Britain.  When  the  British  Church  was  cut  off  from 
communication  with  Home  in  the  fifth  century  by  the 
hostile  and  impassable  barrier  of  heathen  English, 
Jutes,  and  Engles,  the  Church  of  Ireland  shared  its 
isolation :  and  while  Catholic  in  doctrine,  had  assigned 
to  it  a  singularly  independent  development,  by  cher- 
ishing learning  and  a  high  enthusiasm,  in  complete 
isolation  from  the  rest  of  Christendom.  It  sent  forth 
not  only  Saint  Columba  (565)  to  the  conversion  of 
the  Picts  in  British  Dalriada,  and  Saint  Aidan  to 
the  English  !N'orthumbrians  (635),  but  Saint  Colum- 
banus  (595)  to  the  Burgundian  Jura,  the  Helvetian 
Zurich,  and  the  Italian  cloisters  of  Bobbio,  Saint  Gall 
(614)  to  the  Alamans  and  the  Lake  of  Constance — 


6        INFLUENCE  OF  THE  ENGLISH  CHURCH 

the  apostle  at  once  of  the  Gospel  and  of  settled  life,  of 
husbandry  and  tillage.  While  the  Italian  monks  were 
attempting,  after  the  Koman  fashion,  in  a  political 
and  systematic  way,  to  convert  whole  kingdoms  en 
Hoc  by  the  previous  conversion  of  their  rulers,  the 
Irish  preachers  went  to  work  with  true  missionary 
earnestness  to  convert  the  half-Celtic  people  of  !N'or- 
thumbria  man  by  man  in  their  own  homes.  Aidan, 
the  Apostle  of  the  N'orth,  was  among  the  first  to  see 
the  mistake  of  attempting  to  lord  it  over  the  people 
committed  to  his  care,  as  Gorman  the  bishop  sent 
first  from  lona  had  done:  and  transferred  the  seat 
of  the  mission  to  Lindisfarne,  an  island  on  the  coast 
not  protected  by  Koman  walls  like  the  royal  Bam- 
borough,  but  by  the  natural  fortress  of  the  sea  and 
the  shifting  sands  for  a  barrier.  Saint  Aidan  looked 
for  the  conversion  of  the  men  of  the  north  by  min- 
gling among  the  people.  He  went  about  his  vast 
diocese,  not  on  horseback,  unless  necessity  compelled 
him,  but  on  foot.  Wherever  he  saw  wayfarers  ap- 
proaching he  went  up  to  them  at  once,  whether 
rich  or  poor.  If  they  were  unbelievers  he  urged 
them  to  receive  the  faith,  if  believers  he  urged 
them  by  word  and  deed — for  he  lived  as  he  taught 
others  to  live — to  alms  and  good  works.  Aidan  had 
as  an  aid  King  Gswald,  who  had  been  trained  in 
adversity  at  lona,  and  brought  up  in  the  Scottish 
school.  When  Aidan,  who  knew  little  English, 
preached  to  the  military  leaders  and  attendants  of 
the  Gourt,  Gswald  acted  as  interpreter  in  his  behalf 
in  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel.     The  effect  of  the 


THE    BRITISH    AND    ENGLISH    CHURCHES  7 

change  in  the  working  of  the  mission  was  soon  seen. 
Churches  were  built  at  the  various  centres  of  teaching 
by  the  help  of  the  Irish  missionaries,  who,  on  hearing 
of  the  success  of  Aidan's  work,  flocked  to  Northum- 
bria,  and  covered  the  land  with  Christian  teaching; 
where,  through  the  aid  of  the  king's  good  offices, 
property  and  lands  were  given  for  the  establishment 
of  monasteries.  Other  Celtic  missionaries  penetrated 
further  south.  Diuma  preached  to  the  Middle  Eng- 
lish of  Leicester,  and  Peada,  their  Ealderman,  son 
of  Penda,  embraced  the  new  faith.  Ceadda,  or  Chad, 
the  patron  saint  of  Lichfield,  carried  the  Gospel  to  the 
Mercians.  Thus  the  heterodox  Church,  as  it  was 
by  some  regarded  at  the  time,  made  rapid  strides 
throughout  the  whole  north. 

It  has  become  so  much  the  fashion,  in  the  reaction 
from  the  extravagant  claims  of  earlier  writers,  to  lay 
stress  upon  the  Gregory  the  Great  and  the  Italian 
Mission  that  we  have  to  thank  Bishop  Lightfoot  for 
calling  attention  again  to  the  just  claims  to  recogni- 
tion by  the  Scoto-Celtic  Church  as  an  offset  to  the 
demands  of  Wilfrid  and  the  Roman  school  before 
Theodore  had  entered  on  his  work.  "In  spite  of  the 
bitter  and  endless  enmity  which  continued  to  exist  be- 
tween the  remnant  of  the  ancient  British  people,  who 
had  found  a  refuge  among  the  mountain  fastnesses 
of  Wales  and  Cumberland,"  it  has  been  well  said  by 
Dean  Spence,  "and  the  ^N^orthmen  conquerors  of  the 
island ;  in  spite  of  the  bloody  and  ceaseless  feuds  which 
separated  the  kindred  tribes  of  the  conquerors,  Chris- 
tianity kept  on  making  a  steady,  rapid  progress  in 


8  INFLUENCE   OF    THE   ENGLISH   CHURCH 

wellnigh  all  the  districts  of  the  island.  But  most  of 
the  evangelizing  work,  we  must  ever  remember,  was 
done  by  the  Celtic  rather  than  by  the  Roman  mission 
agencies.  The  stream  of  the  Divine  word,  which 
bathed  in  succession  all  the  Pagan  settlements  of 
the  Northmen,  flowed  rather  from  the  northern  than 
from  the  southern  portion  of  the  island — from  lona, 
the  Monastery  of  Columba,  on  the  Scottish  coast,  and 
from  Lindisfame,  on  the  ISTorthumbrian  coast,  the 
Monastery  of  Aidan,  rather  than  from  Canterbury 
and  the  Kentish  settlements  of  Augustine  and  his 
successors." 

That  the  Scoto-Celtic  Church,  apart  altogether  from 
its  relation  to  the  British,  was  defective  in  the  matter 
of  organization  is  undoubtedly  true.  The  defect 
arose  from  the  fact  that  the  potestas  ordinis  necessary 
to  valid  consecration  was  not  conferred  by  election, 
but,  in  accordance  with  the  clan  system  of  the  Irish 
race,  by  a  kind  of  right  of  inheritance  from  the 
founder  of  the  family.  The  communities  thus  formed 
were  not,  in  the  proper  meaning  of  the  word,  a 
hierarchically  constituted  church,  but  only  alliances 
of  a  family  kind  loosely  touching  one  another,  with- 
out altering  their  relation  to  the  brotherhood  or  clan. 
The  difficulty  was  not  a  scholastic  or  theoretical  one, 
but  inherent  in  a  system  which  tended  to  degrade  the 
spiritual  element  inherent  in  the  episcopate  by  placing 
the  bishop  in  subjection  to  the  abbot,  whether  in  orders 
or  simply  a  lay  brother,  if  related  by  family  inherit- 
ance to  the  clan.  And  yet  the  working  of  the  system 
for  missionary  purposes  had  its  value,  because  of  the 


THE    BRITISH   AND    ENGLISH    CHURCHES  9 

check  it  placed  on  the  temptation  to  worldliness  and 
episcopal  intolerance,  on  the  part  of  the  third  order 
of  the  ministry.  Bishops,  through  the  limitations 
placed  on  their  functions,  were  kept  in  their  proper 
place  and  used  for  ministerial  purposes  until  the  time 
came  for  the  adjustment  of  the  relations  of  the  po- 
testas  ordinis  through  the  intervention  of  the  idea  of  a 
hierarchy  of  order.  This  took  place  in  the  time  of  Con- 
stantino the  Great,  when  the  Germans,  for  political 
purposes,  were  incorporated  into  the  army.  A  new 
element  in  the  fourth  century — the  German  national- 
ity— was  at  work  gradually  infusing  itself  into  the 
Roman  world,  especially  in  the  west.  The  Teutonic 
spirit  of  individual  freedom,  as  opposed  to  the  Eoman 
spirit  of  tyrannical  universal  law,  in  which  the  indi- 
vidual and  his  interests  were  regarded  as  of  no  ac- 
count, found  in  Christianity  an  element  of  assimila- 
tion which  made  a  marked  difference  in  the  treatment 
of  the  barbarians  as  local  factors  in  their  rela- 
tion to  the  state.  While  the  impulsive,  emotional  Cel- 
tic race  was  made  use  of  as  mercenaries  Constantino 
adopted  the  policy  of  treating  the  Germans  with  great 
consideration.  Not  being  attached  to  Roman  ideas  by 
hereditary  tradition,  but  having  within  them  the 
Teutonic  attachment  to  personal  freedom  of  life  and 
action  which  the  Romans  regarded  as  the  peculiar 
German  characteristic,  the  leaders  of  the  Goths  val- 
ued the  Empire  sufficiently  to  desire  to  partake  of  its 
superior  civilization.  The  result  was  the  infusing  of 
new  life  into  the  effete  Empire,  ready  to  perish  from 
the  growth  of  infanticide.    Christianity,  in  the  value 


10  EFFLUENCE   OF    THE   ENGLISH   CHUECH 

it  attached  to  the  sacredness  of  human  life,  found  in 
the  Germanic  races  the  soil  prepared  for  it  to  implant 
the  seed  from  which  is  to  spring  the  hope  of  immor- 
tality. 

Races  have  their  mission,  as  well  as  men.  The  imr 
pulsive  Celt  has  his  place  in  history  as  well  as  the 
stolid  Saxon.  Each  has  his  own  position  and  work 
divinely  assigned  him.  The  one  is  the  counterpart 
and  complement  of  the  other.  Eor  more  than  a  hun- 
dred years  Catholic  Christendom  had  heen  divided 
into  three  great  sections:  the  Church  of  the  East, 
with  Constantinople  as  its  centre ;  the  Church  of  the 
West,  with  its  centre  at  Rome,  and  the  Church  of  the 
!N'orth-west,  with  its  centre  in  Ireland.  "While 
Rome,"  as  Mr.  Wakeman  observes,  "was  engaged  in 
tJie  intellectual  struggles  of  theological  controversy, 
Ireland  was  sending  missionaries  to  convert  the 
heathen  at  the  very  gates  of  Italy.  In  Wales  the  Cel- 
tic Church  was  throwing  off  the  weakness  and  recover- 
ing from  the  degradation  caused  by  the  long  struggles 
with  its  English  conquerors.  Organized,  like  the 
Church  in  the  East  and  West,  under  territorial  bish- 
ops, it  too  had  developed  under  Saint  David,  Saint 
Dubricius,  and  Saint  Teilo,  a  real  and  true  life  of  its 
own,  wholly  uninfluenced  by  Rome."  But  the  time 
had  come  that  something  more  was  needed,  if  the 
English  Church,  now  that  the  German  element  had 
been  incorporated  with  the  British,  is  to  make  its 
power  felt  as  the  Kingdom  of  God  in  the  world.  His- 
tory repeats  itself.  Monasticism  is  not  an  accident  of 
Christianity ;  it  is  part  and  parcel  of  the  preparatory 


THE    BRITISH   AND    ENGLISH    CHURCHES  11 

work  of  the  reformation  which  John  the  Baptist  was 
sent  to  represent  in  preparing  the  way  for  the  setting 
up  of  the  Kingdom.  John  knew  himself  the  relation 
which  he  bore  to  Him  whose  way  he  was  sent  to 
herald,  better  than  his  disciples  did.  His  motto  was 
graven  on  the  seal  which  bore  witness  to  his  being  a 
true  prophet: — "He  must  increase,  but  I  must  de- 
crease." For  the  building  up  and  establishing  of  the 
Kingdom  new  agents  are  needed,  new  moral  forces  are 
to  be  called  into  existence.  It  was  only  to  a  super- 
ficial onlooker  that  the  stern  prophet  of  the  wilderness 
seemed  to  stand  in  the  way  of  Christ  and  the  appear- 
ing of  the  kingdom.  The  object  of  the  law  was  to 
rouse  the  sense  of  duty,  while  the  function  of  the 
prophet  was  to  deepen  the  consciousness  of  guilt. 
This  done,  the  time  had  come  for  the  proclamation 
of  the  setting  up  of  the  kingdom  by  preaching  the 
remission  of  sins,  and  the  opening  of  the  door  of  ad- 
mission to  the  nations  to  enter  in.  I^or  could  this 
take  effect  except  by  violence,  and  the  operation  of  the 
law  of  catastrophe,  as  the  old  order  perished  and 
the  new  development  had  begun  to  run  its  course. 
It  is  true  that  there  was  a  rigor  amounting  to  severity 
in  the  Scoto-Celtic  monk,  but  this  was  combined 
with  the  burning  enthusiasm  and  impassioned  love 
of  self-sacrifice  for  the  souls  of  men  which  made  their 
presentment  of  Christianity  a  moral  power  over  the 
untutored  heathenism  of  the  men  who  yielded  to  its 
influence.  Their  awful  severity  alternated  with  a  deep 
and  broad  tenderness  which  took  by  storm  the  hearts 
of  Engle  and  Saxon,  now  that  persuasion  had  given 
place  to  force  in  the  extension  of  the  faith. 


12  INFLUENCE    OF    THE    ENGLISH    CHURCH 

The  Church  of  England,  in  the  providence  of  God, 
owes  its  existence  to  a  Greek  monk.  His  antecedents 
as  a  memher  of  the  Eastern  Church  enabled  him  to 
harmonize  the  conflicting  claims  of  the  two  schools 
into  which  the  English  Church  at  the  time  of  his 
advent  was  divided,  and  to  address  himself  with  broad 
views  of  ecclesiastical  polity  to  the  task  of  organizing 
the  Heptarchic  churches  into  a  harmonious  province 
of  the  Catholic  Church.  So  far  as  culture  was  con- 
cerned, Theodore  was  not  in  opposition  to  the  Irish ; 
they  attended  his  schools,  Aldhelm  tells  us,  in  large 
numbers :  but  he  took  the  ground  and  maintained  it, 
that  since  he  was  himself  in  Roman  orders,  in  matters 
of  discipline  whatever  was  lacking  or  questionable 
in  the  orders  of  Scottish  or  British  bishops,  must 
be  remedied  by  the  imposition  of  hands  on  the 
part  of  a  Catholic  bishop.  The  primacy  of  Theodore, 
following  close  as  it  did  on  the  conference  held  at 
Whitby,  under  Oswy,  the  successor  of  Oswald,  and 
trained  in  the  same  Celtic  school,  marks  an  epoch  of 
transition  in  the  history  of  the  British  and  English 
churches.  When  he  came  into  power  as  Arch- 
bishop, it  seemed  as  if  there  might  be  as  many  distinct 
and  independent  churches  as  there  were  kingdoms  in 
the  Heptarchy  itself ;  but  if  others  founded  churches, 
Theodore  organized  them  into  one  national  church. 
His  great  work  consisted  in  the  establishment  of  a 
national  synod  under  the  presidency  of  the  King 
of  Kent,  in  the  year  a.d.  673,  at  Hertford,  under 
himself  as  Archbishop  of  Canterbury.  This  was  the 
first  step  ever  taken  toward  unification  of  England. 


THE   BRITISH   AND   ENGLISH    CHURCHES  13 

Before  the  time  of  Theodore,  the  archbishops  of  Can- 
terbury and  all  the  bishops  of  the  southern  kingdom 
had  been  Koman  missionaries  sent  forth  by  Gregory 
the  Great;  those  of  the  north  had  been  Scots  or  in 
Scottish  orders.  After  Theodore  they  were  all  Eng- 
lishmen in  Roman  orders.  It  was  the  ecclesiastical 
unity  thus  established  which  paved  the  way  for  the 
political  unity  which  was  to  follow  it.  Theodore,  says 
Bede,  was  the  first  archbishop  whom  all  the  English 
Church  obeyed.  "Before  his  time,"  says  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  Chronicle,  "the  bishops  had  been  Romans,  but 
from  this  time  they  were  English." 

It  was  left  for  Boniface,  "the  Apostle  of  Ger- 
many," to  complete  the  work  Theodore  of  Canter- 
bury had  begun.  Owing  to  the  zeal  and  energy 
of  the  English  missionaries  at  a  time  when  the 
Church  in  the  eighth  century  was  losing  ground  on  the 
Continent  of  Europe,  the  schools  of  Britain  and  Ire- 
land, as  the  result  of  the  efforts  of  Theodore  and 
Adrian  to  cultivate  the  advance  of  the  Greek  and  Latin 
tongues,  were  among  the  best  in  Christendom :  and  of 
all  the  schools  that  of  Archbishop  Egbert  ranked 
among  the  first.  The  English  missionaries  were  not 
slow  to  emulate  the  zeal  of  their  Celtic  forerunners,  in 
their  efforts  to  carry  the  light  of  the  Gospel  to  the  still 
pagan  nations  on  the  Continent.  Boniface,  in  the 
year  T18,  visited  Rome,  carrying  with  him  the  com- 
mendatory letter  of  the  Bishop  of  Winchester,  and 
obtained  the  sanction  of  Gregory  II.  to  his  mission 
among  the  Hessians  and  other  heathen  tribes  of  Ger- 
many.    When  consecrated  to  his  work  on  a  second 


14 


INFLUENCE   OF    THE   ENGLISH   CHUKCH 


visit  to  Rome,  as  missionary  bishop  in  722,  Boniface 
took  the  oath  of  obedience  to  the  Roman  See.  Boni- 
face has  been  found  fault  with  for  this.  But  the 
legitimate  claims  of  the  Roman  See  had  to  be  main- 
tained for  the  time  being  in  view  of  the  anarchy  which 
prevailed.  When  the  question  of  the  submission  of  the 
English  Church  to  Rome  was  brought  forward,  at  the 
Synod  of  Cloveshoo,  in  a.d.  747,  it  was  determined 
that  "if  there  is  anything  which  a  bishop  could  not 
reform  in  his  own  diocese,  he  was  to  bring  it  before 
the  Archbishop  in  Synod."  Boniface  himself  with- 
stood the  interference  of  Stephen  II.  when  he  felt 
called  upon  to  do  so. 

I  have  hitherto  purposely  refrained,  in  dealing 
with  the  subject  of  the  relations  of  the  British  and 
English  Churches,  upon  entering  any  further  than 
necessary,  from  an  historical  point  of  view,  on  the 
controversial  questions  involved.  An  impartial  judg- 
ment of  the  arguments  advanced  by  the  contesting 
parties  will  result  in  the  conclusion  that  the  com- 
batants were,  for  the  most  part,  too  much  influenced  by 
passion  and  prejudice  to  deal  fairly  one  with  another. 
The  Easter  question,  which  comes  to  the  front  at  the 
conference  called  at  Whitby  to  settle  upon  terms  of 
agreement  was,  in  truth,  an  old  issue  in  a  new  form. 
While  Victor  of  Rome  had  neither  the  right  nor  the 
power,  without  consulting  the  Churches  of  Asia 
Minor,  to  fix  the  date  for  the  keeping  of  Easter,  now 
that  the  transition  had  taken  place  between  Judaism 
and  Christianity,  the  observance  had  become  a  matter 
of  catholic  unity,  and  could  no  longer  be  reckoned 


THE   BRITISH   AND    ENGLISH    OHUKCHES  15 

among  things  indifferent — to  be  left  to  individual 
choice  or  caprice.  The  question  of  tonsure,  so  hotly 
contested  between  the  Eomanizing  followers  of  Wil- 
frid on  the  one  side,  and  the  British  and  Scottish 
schools  on  the  other,  was  in  reality  not  an  ecclesiastical 
dispute  which,  on  the  ground  of  apostolic  tradition, 
either  on  the  authority  of  Saint  Peter  or  Saint  John, 
could  be  settled,  but  one  which  had  to  do  with  the 
entrance  of  the  neophyte  on  the  religious  life  before 
taking  holy  orders.  The  tonsure  in  itself,  like  the 
cutting  of  hair  of  the  Nazarite,  was  neither  Greek  nor 
Eoman  in  its  Origin,  but  a  mark  of  separation  from 
the  world,  whether  under  the  Hebrew  dispensation,  or 
the  Druidical  priest,  consecrated  to  religion.  The 
form  of  the  tonsure  it  was  for  the  monk,  whether 
Greek  or  Eoman,  Jewish  or  Pagan,  to  determine,  and 
had  no  place  in  Christian  symbolism,  properly  so- 
called.  Viewed  in  the  light  of  a  ceremonial  adjunct, 
tonsure,  as  a  symbol  of  separation,  was  common  to 
all  forms  of  religion,  whether  Greek,  Eoman,  or 
Druidical,  alike. 

To  Gregory  the  Great  the  English  Church  owes 
^e  initiative  in  laying  the  foundation  of  its  hie- 
^^archical  superstructure.  When  Theodore,  at  the  call 
of  Vitalian,  first  came  to  Britain  the  Church  was  little 
more  than  a  collection  of  independent  mission  sta- 
tions ;  the  Primate  of  Canterbury  little  more  than  a 
diocesan  bishop,  unknown  beyond  the  bounds  of  Kent, 
and  in  danger  of  being  overshadowed  by  the  great 
bishopric  of  l^orthumbria.  Bishops  and  clergy  lived 
together  in  common  in  the  monasterium.    There  were 


16       INFLUENCE  OF  THE  ENGLISH  CHUECH 

no  parish  clmrches  and  no  resident  clergy.  Theo- 
dore's work  for  the  first  three  years  of  his  episcopate 
was  to  make  a  general  visitation,  with  the  help  of 
Adrian,  asserting  his  own  position  as  archbishop,  and 
organizing  the  various  dioceses  around  the  See  of 
Canterbury.  The  next  step  was  to  call  a  provincial 
synod  at  Hertford,  at  which  the  leading  bishops  of 
Britain,  with  the  exception  of  Wilfrid  who  was  rep- 
resented by  proxies,  were  in  attendance,  to  help  aid 
Theodore  in  this  first  visitation,  which  ended  in  671. 
The  visitation  made  by  Theodore  was  thorough  (in 
the  latest  Loudion  meaning  of  the  word)  :  it  was  like 
all  Theodore's  work,  conservative  and  not  destructive, 
conciliatory  and  not  subversive  of  what  had  already 
been  done  by  the  authorities  in  Church  and  State  be- 
fore his  coming  into  the  country.  When  he  found 
that  two  British  bishops  had  taken  part  with  the  vice- 
bishop  of  Winchester  in  consecrating  Chad  to  Lindis- 
f  arne,  Theodore  did  not  allow  himself  to  be  influenced 
by  the  sentiment  of  the  first  time  when  the  union  of 
the  two  divergent  lines  had  met  together  in  a  joint 
act,  but  took  occasion  to  supplement  whatever  was 
lacking  in  Chad's  acceptance,  since  he  had  in  his 
"Penitential"  made  a  rule  that  "all  ordained  by 
bishops  of  the  Scots  or  Britons  who  held  to  the  Celtic 
usages  had  no  orders  in  the  Catholic  Church  until 
their  orders  had  been  confirmed  by  the  imposition  of 
the  hands  of  a  Catholic  bishop."  When  Chad  yielded 
the  point  in  question,  and  in  a  spirit  of  meekness 
complied  with  Theodore's  pledge  given  to  the  Eoman 
See,  he  secured  for  him,  at  the  request  of  Wulfere, 


THE    BRITISH   AND    ENGLISH    CHURCHES  17 

the  King  of  Mercia,  the  See  of  Lichfield,  as  a  token 
of  reconciliation  and  a  reward  for  his  spirit  of  self- 
surrender. 

When  we  contrast  Theodore  with  Augustine,  we 
can  discern  the  hand  of  God  in  the  changes  which 
had  been  gradually  at  work  in  the  transformation  by 
which  the  Church  of  Britain  had  become  the  Church 
of  England ;  and  after  a  transition  period  of  a  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years,  through  the  intervention  of  Greg- 
ory the  Great  and  Theodore  of  Tarsus,  the  Church 
of  England  was  prepared  to  transmit  to  future  gener- 
ations whatsoever  was  truly  catholic  in  the  Greek 
and  Roman  Churches,  without  becoming  Byzantine 
on  the  one  hand,  or  Roman  Catholic  on  the  other. 
It  was  by  no  accident  that  Gregory  the  Great  was 
fitted  to  be  a  statesman  different  in  liberality  of  tone 
and  temper  from  Augustine  and  Paulinus.  I^either 
was  it  by  chance  that  a  Greek  monk,  after  Adrian  had 
refused  the  offer  of  the  archbishopric,  should  be  se- 
lected by  Gregory's  successor  at  Rome,  Vitalian,  to 
qualify  himself  to  unite  with  Adrian  in  the  work  of 
organizing  the  English  Church;  nor  was  it  acci- 
dental that  the  British  and  Celtic  Churches,  by 
their  missionary  efforts  during  the  interregnum 
caused  by  the  withdrawal  of  the  Roman  occupa- 
tion of  the  island,  and  the  invasion  of  the  German 
tribes,  had  prepared  the  way  for  the  Heptarchy 
to  become  a  nation:  and  Greek  culture  and  civ- 
ilization combined  with  Roman  law  and  imperial 
organization,  under  the  form  of  provincial  and  di- 
ocesan arrangement  with  a  graduated  hierarchy  of 


18  INFLUENCE    OF    THE   ENGLISH   CHUECH 

orders,  to  correct  the  disintegrating  tendency  of  Celtic 
impulse  and  German  personality  to  schism  and  di- 
vision, while  councils  are  being  held  to  formulate  the 
doctrines  of  the  faith,  and  codes  of  law  were  formed, 
by  the  Penitentials  of  Theodore  of  Tarsus  and  the 
Pandects  of  Theodorus  and  Justinian,  to  systematize 
the  laws  by  which  the  new  forces  which  had  been  set 
in  motion  by  the  introduction  of  the  barbarians  are  to 
be  converted  and  educated  for  the  establishing  of  the 
Kingdom  of  Christ  in  the  world.  Bede  tells  us  that 
the  scholars  of  Theodore  and  Adrian  were  as  well 
versed  in  Latin  and  Greek  as  in  their  own  language. 
Under  Theodore  the  Church  of  England  became  pre- 
eminently a  learned  church.  Before  his  time  students 
from  Britain,  as  well  as  from  the  Continent,  had  been 
accustomed  to  flock  to  the  Irish  monastic  schools. 
Theodore  brought  back  the  learning  which  had  been 
banished  from  Britain  by  the  English  conquest.  His 
no  less  gifted  friend,  Adrian,  Bede  tells  us,  was  ex- 
ceedingly skilled  in  Greek  and  in  Latin.  At  the 
school  which  Augustine  founded  at  Canterbury,  a 
number  of  eminent  men  were  educated  by  Adrian, 
and  the  sainted  John  of  Beverly,  who  became  Bishop 
of  Hexham  in  687  and  of  York  in  Y05.  There,  too, 
Aldhelm,  under  whom  as  Abbot  of  Malmesbury  the 
monastery  became  so  famous  that  scholars  from 
France  and  Scotland  flocked  to  his  teaching;  and 
who,  under  Ini,  King  of  Wessex,  became  the  first 
bishop  of  Sherborne  in  a.d.  705.  It  was  to  Alcuin  of 
York,  it  will  be  remembered,  that  Charlemagne, 
when  he  wished  to  revive  the  almost  extinguished 


TKE   BEITISH   AND   ENGLISH    OHUECHES  19 

literature  of  France,  turned  for  help.  In  the  year 
787  he  was,  by  the  invitation  of  Charles,  present  at 
the  Council  of  Frankfort,  where  the  influence  of 
the  English  Church,  as  contradistinguished  from  the 
Greek  and  Latin  schools  of  theology,  was  for  the 
first  time  felt  by  the  insertion  of  the  catholic  verity 
of  the  Procession  of  the  Holy  Ghost  from  the  Father 
and  the  Son,  already  acknowledged  by  the  English 
Church  by  the  Council  of  Hatfield  in  a.d.  680,  and 
at  the  command  of  the  Emperor  ordered  to  be  sung 
in  the  creed. 


#f 


LECTURE  II 

€^t  Cljurcft  a^  tt^t  ^Ducatot  of  tt^t  people 


LECTURE  II 

€i)e  €I)uttt)  a^  tt)e  (etititator  of  tfyt  people 

THE  general  subject  of  which  mine  is  a  sub- 
division is  "The  Influence  of  the  English 
Church  on  Anglo-Saxon  Civilization,"  but  as 
it  is  manifestly  impossible  to  sever  the  English  Church 
from  the  Church  of  the  Apostolic  and  Post-Apostolic 
period,  so  it  is  equally  out  of  the  question  to  discuss 
the  subject  of  Christian  education  and  the  establish- 
ment of  schools  and  universities  under  the  control  of 
the  Church,  apart  from  the  lessons  of  the  Christian 
centuries  which  preceded  the  foundations  of  learning 
in  the  British  Isles. 

In  all  great  movements  of  whatever  kind,  which 
have  profoundly  influenced  our  civilization,  it  is  well 
to  have  an  historical  perspective,  through  which  to 
view  them,  and  a  background  against  which  to  outline 
the  figures,  which  stand  in  such  bold  relief  upon  the 
foreground  of  our  canvas.  The  work  of  Christian 
education,  which  in  this  paper  we  will  define  to  be 
education  under  the  auspices  of  the  Church,  took  its 
rise  in  that  period  of  "acute  hellenization,"  as  Mr. 
Hamack  aptly  describes  it,  when  the  Church  formed 
its  first  compact  with  Greek  thought  and  philosophy, 
and  the  human  intellect  was  started  upon  a  career  of 
speculation  and  inquiry  from  which  there  was  no 
turning  back  until  an  answer  had  been  found  in  the 
Catholic  creeds.    'No  discussion  of  "the  Church  as  the 

23 


24  INFLUENCE   OF    THE   ENGLISH   CHUECH 

educator  of  the  people"  would  be  complete  which 
failed  to  note  the  tremendous  impulse  which  was  given 
to  the  spirit  of  inquiry  and  research  throughout  the 
entire  Conciliar  period.  Often,  no  doubt,  we  are  con- 
scious of  a  certain  distrust  of  the  metaphysical  and 
exegetical  arguments  employed  by  the  disputants  on 
either  side,  but  through  all  the  subtleties  of  meta- 
physics, and  strife  of  words  as  to  the  exact  meaning 
of  "substance"  and  "subsistence,"  of  nature  and  per- 
sonality, one  fact  shines  out  clear  and  unmistakable, 
the  triumph  of  the  catholic  party  was  the  triumph  of 
human  reason  guided  and  illumined  by  the  Spirit  of 
God.  The  Church  during  that  period  of  intellectual 
unrest  and  perplexity,  definitely  and  once  for  all  com- 
mitted herself  to  the  principle  that  learning  and  phi- 
losophy may  serve  as  the  handmaids  of  religion  in  the 
search  for  truth. 

Any  attempt,  therefore,  in  our  own  time  to  dis- 
parage dogma  and  to  teach  that  it  is  of  no  special 
consequence  what  men  believe  about  Christ,  so  long 
as  they  live  His  life  and  are  animated  by  His  spirit, 
under  whatever  name  it  may  cloak  itself,  is  really  an 
attempt  to  undervalue  the  part  that  reason  and  schol- 
arship have  played  in  the  development  of  Christian 
doctrine.  The  union  that  was  formed  in  the  third 
and  fourth  centuries  between  philosophy  and  religion, 
between  Hellenism  and  Hebraism,  between  Greek 
culture  and  the  simple,  unquestioning  faith  of  a 
youthful  church  set  free  from  the  trammels  of  Juda- 
ism, was  God-ordained. 

In  the  union  of  reason  and  faith  thus  consecrated 


THB.CHUECH  AS  AN  EDUCATOR         25 

to  the  great  task  of  working  out  a  rational  theology 
and  Christology,  we  have  the  Magna  Charta  of  Chris- 
tian education  in  all  ages.  The  intellectual  conflict 
precipitated  by  the  attacks  of  the  Gnostics  and  early 
heresies  upon  the  faith  of  the  Church  was  the  price 
of  her  intellectual  freedom.  By  the  question  pro- 
pounded to  His  disciples  at  Csesarea  Philippi,  "Whom 
do  men  say  that  I,  the  Son  of  Man,  am  ?"  our  Lord 
Himself  may  be  justly  said  to  have  been  the  first  who 
started  the  inquiry  concerning  His  nature  and  person, 
which  He  must  have  foreseen  would  engage  the  mind 
of  His  Church  for  centuries  after  His  Ascension. 
Once  challenge  men,  as  He  did,  with  the  searching 
and  pertinent  question,  "Whom  do  ye  say  that  I  am  V 
and  you  start  the  human  intellect  upon  a  voyage  of 
discovery  which,  however  perilous,  can  never  be  cur- 
tailed or  surrendered  as  vain  and  futile.  It  is  useless 
for  theologians,  like  Harnack,  to  deplore  this  fusion 
of  philosophy  with  religion  in  the  ante-l!Ticene  period 
and  to  speak  of  the  loss  of  the  "original  enthusiasm" 
and  "simplicity  of  the  first  converts"  of  the  new  re- 
ligion, as  though  the  hold  which  Christianity  had  upon 
men  declined  just  in  proportion  as  they  began  to  use 
their  brains,  and  to  seek  to  discover  the  proper  mean- 
ing of  Godhead  and  Manhood,  and  of  the  conditions 
of  their  union  in  the  One  Person  of  Christ. 

Such  a  development  of  Christian  doctrine  was  in- 
evitable. It  was  essential  to  the  very  existence  of 
Christianity  in  the  world  that  the  Church  should  state 
in  distinct  and  scientific  form  truths  which  had  been 
held  from  the  beginning,  but  which  the  minds  of  men 


26  INFLUENCE   OF    THE   ENGLISH   CHURCH 

had  not  been  Exercised  in  precisely  defining.  In  the 
Garden  of  Eden,  from  which  our  first  parents  were 
cast  out  for  their  disobedience,  we  read  that  the  Tree 
of  Life  was  planted  close  to  the  Tree  of  Knowledge, 
to  indicate  that  there  can  be  no  complete  Christian 
life  without  knowledge,  and  that  apart  from  knowl- 
edge life  is  feeble  and  insecure.  In  working  out  a 
true  Christology,  the  Church  did  not  hesitate  to  make 
use  of  the  learning  and  culture  of  the  ancients.  She 
called  to  her  aid  the  dialectical  skill  of  the  trained 
disputants  of  the  schools  of  Athens  and  Alexandria. 
She  adopted  the  very  language  of  the  philosophical 
systems  by  which  she  was  surrounded.  She  borrowed 
alike  from  philosophizing  Jew  and  Greek  Platonist. 
Her  ablest  defenders  were  men  like  Justin  Martyr 
and  Clement  of  Alexandria;  men  who  had  travelled 
through  many  different  countries  in  search  of  wisdom, 
and  had  studied  in  the  great  schools  of  heathen  philos- 
ophy, and  who  at  last  had  found  a  complete  answer 
to  their  eager  questionings  in  the  Faith  of  Jesus 
Christ. 

These  men  accepted  the  Gospel,  not  because  all  that 
they  had  learned  in  the  schools  of  the  Platonists  or 
of  the  Stoics  had  been  false,  but  because  they  found 
in  Christianity  the  fulfilment  of  the  half  truths  of 
Paganism  and  the  realization  of  ethical  ideals  which 
had  been  partially  though  imperfectly  anticipated  in 
the  writings  of  heathen  philosophers  like  Aristotle 
and  Epictetus.  While  Tertullian  and  Irenseus,  and 
even  Saint  Augustine,  in  his  later  years,  condemned 
philosophy  as  the  fruitful  mother  of  heresies,  Justin 


THE  CHURCH  AS  AN  EDUCATOR         27 

Martyr  and  the  Greek  theologians  of  the  school  of 
Clement  and  Athanasius  did  not  hesitate  to  teach  that 
Christianity  was  the  only  true  philosophy. 

It  is  said  that  Justin  Martyr,  after  his  conversion, 
always  wore  his  philosopher's  cloak  to  signify  the 
continuity  of  his  spiritual  history  and  that,  in  be- 
coming a  Christian,  he  had  not  ceased  to  be  a  philos- 
opher. This  attitude  of  mind  was  something  new  in 
the  history  of  the  Church,  and  is  worthy  of  mention 
here  because  it  represents  the  attitude  which  the  true 
Christian  teacher  and  scholar  should  assume  toward 
all  departments  of  human  learning. 

In  the  earnestness  with  which  this  great  Christian 
apologist  sought  after  the  truth ;  in  the  breadth  of  his 
culture  and  freedom  from  prejudice;  in  the  unity  of 
his  knowledge,  as  well  as  in  the  continuity  of  his  re- 
ligious history,  we  have  the  germ  of  all  Christian  edu- 
cation. It  is  not  surprising,  therefore,  to  find  that 
the  first  Christian  school  of  the  early  Church,  the  first 
great  intellectual  centre  of  learning  fostered  by  the 
Church  and  presided  over  by  men  of  distinguished 
abilities,  was  the  Catechetical  School  of  Alexandria, 
which  tradition  says  was  founded  by  Saint  Mark,  and 
which  by  the  middle  of  the  second  century  had  be- 
come a  seminary  for  the  training  of  the  clergy,  and 
for  giving  advanced  courses  of  instruction  to  the  more 
highly  educated  converts.  In  the  succession  of  emi- 
nent scholars  and  theologians  who  presided  over  this 
school  we  may  see  the  worthy  successors  of  Justin 
Martyr  and  others  like  him,  who  had  been  led  to 
Christianity,  not    through  Judaism,  but    through  a 


28  INFLUENCE   OF    THE   ENGLISH   CHURCH 

long  line  of  philosophers  and  "seekers  after  the 
truth,"  whose  preparatory  labors  had  aided  them  to  a 
better  understanding  of  the  faith  of  the  Gospel.  To 
this  orthodox  Alexandrian  school  and  to  the  teachings 
of  Pantsenus,  Clement,  Origen,  and  Athanasius,  we 
have  the  first  denial  of  the  alleged  opposition  between 
faith  and  knowledge,  which  the  Gnostics  were  so  fond 
of  maintaining,  and  which  has  proved  in  every  age  of 
the  Church  the  greatest  foe  of  progress  and  the  most 
serious  drawback  to  the  cause  of  higher  education. 
Freedom  of  thought  and  the  open  door  of  investiga- 
tion into  the  foundations  of  religious  belief  may  prove 
dangerous  weapons  in  the  hands  of  the  irreverent  and 
unbelieving.  They  were  so  in  the  school  of  Alexan- 
dria. But,  if  some  of  the  most  dangerous  heresies 
which  threatened  the  faith  of  the  Church  emanated 
from  this  Christian  school,  we  should  not  forget  that 
it  also  produced  a  catholic  theology  which  completely 
met  and  overcame  them.*  'No  other  writer  has  given 
us  such  a  complete  answer  to  Gnosticism  as  Clement 
of  Alexandria,  and  when  the  accomplished  heathen 
Celsus  attacked  the  new  religion  with  ridicule  and 
argument,  it  was  from  Alexandria  that  the  answer 
came.  And  later,  when  Arianism  threatened  to  sweep 
away  the  bulwarks  of  the  ancient  faith  and  poison 
Christianity  at  its  very  source,  it  was  from  this  same 
school  of  Alexandria  that  Athanasius  came  and  con- 
tended for  the  true  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation.  This 
great  theologian  and  Christian  scholar  exposed  the 
sophistry  of  the  Arians,  laid  bare  their  fallacious  ar- 
*  Allen — "Continuity  of  Christian  Thought." 


THE  CHUKCH  AS  AN  EDUCATOE         29 

guments,  showed  men  the  true  outcome  of  their  phi- 
losophy, and,  under  God,  saved  the  Church  from  seri- 
ous error. 

What  a  simple  and  unquestioning  faith  could  not 
do,  enlightened  reason  and  accurate  scholarship, 
guided  and  illumined  by  the  Spirit  of  God  alone,  was 
enabled  to  accomplish.  The  Church  found  her  ablest 
defender  and  greatest  theologian  in  this  reverent 
Christian  scholar  trained  in  a  "Church  college," 
deeply  versed  in  the  philosophy  and  learning  of  the 
ancients,  borrowing  the  weapons  of  his  dialectical  skill 
and  rhetorical  acumen  from  the  heathen  schools  of 
Athens  and  Alexandria.  Could  there  be  a  better  ar- 
gument for  the  establishment  of  institutions  of  higher 
learning  under  the  auspices  of  the  Church  than  the 
career  of  Saint  Athanasius  affords  ?  The  production 
of  one  such  Christian  scholar  and  theologian  would 
be  worth  all  the  labor  and  all  the  sacrifice  that  the 
Church  now  gives  to  maintain  them. 

The  early  Church  had  no  more  astute  and  danger- 
ous foe  than  Julian  the  Apostate.  He  had  learned 
from  the  experience  of  former  times  that  it  was  use- 
less to  try  to  suppress  Christianity  by  force.  He 
therefore  undertook  to  reduce  its  professors  to  the 
condition  of  an  illiterate  sect.  He  sought  to  defeat  it 
and  to  put  a  stop  to  the  spread  of  Christianity  in  the 
world  by  divorcing  it  from  human  culture.  He  issued 
an  edict  that  no  "Galilean,"  as  the  Christians  were 
styled  by  law,  should  become  a  teacher  of  classical 
literature.  He  declared  that  the  Greek  language  be- 
longed to  his  own  party,  and  that  Christians  had  no 


30  INFLUENCE    OF    THE   ENGLISH    CHUECH 

share  in  a  literature  to  which  their  own  writings 
were  opposed.  He  went  so  far  as  to  prohibit  the  chil- 
dren of  Christian  parents  from  attending  the  public 
schools  or  from  studying  any  classical  author. 

Thus  he  sought  to  deprive  the  Church  of  the  weap- 
ons of  controversial  warfare,  which  she  knew  only  too 
well  how  to  turn  against  the  absurdities  of  pagan 
mythology.  Julian  had  perception  enough  to  see  that 
the  most  powerful  weapon  which  the  Christian  apolo- 
gist could  wield  against  a  decaying  paganism  was  the 
trained  mind  and  the  broad  culture  of  the  student  fa- 
miliar with  all  the  learning  of  his  day  and  yet  imbued 
with  the  spirit  of  Christ  and  holding  in  its  integrity 
the  historic  Faith.  And  whenever  the  Church  has 
sought  to  place  shackles  upon  the  human  mind,  or  has 
cut  herself  off  from  any  avenue  of  approach  to  a  wider 
knowledge  of  God  and  of  His  works,  she  is  falling  into 
the  traps  of  her  enemies  and  unconsciously  adopting 
measures  employed  for  her  suppression  by  the  apos- 
tate and  unbeliever. 

The  antidote  for  doubt  is  not  authority.  It  is  not 
dogma  divorced  from  inquiry  and  research.  It  is 
scholarship,  free,  unfettered,  and  reverent.  To  the 
unbelief  which  is  so  prevalent  in  our  own  time  we 
can  no  longer  oppose  the  authority  of  Scripture  or  the 
authority  of  Church  councils.  We  must  show  men, 
as  those  great  Christian  scholars  of  Alexandria  in  the 
second  and  third  century  sought  to  show  them,  that 
Christianity  is  the  only  true  philosophy ;  that  there  is 
not  an  article  of  our  creed  nor  a  doctrine  of  the  Church 
which  cannot  be  shown  to  have  a  rational  basis. 


THE  CHURCH  AS  AN  EDUCATOR         31 

Nothing  could  be  more  characteristic  of  the  attitude 
of  mind  of  Saint  Athanasius  and  men  of  his  school, 
than  that,  in  contending  for  the  Nicene  formula  in 
the  East,  he  declined  to  rest  its  claims  to  acceptance 
solely  upon  the  authority  of  the  Council,  but  preferred 
to  commend  it  to  men's  minds  by  a  process  of  reason- 
ing. Do  not  understand  me  to  say  that  I  disparage 
in  the  least  the  noble  power  of  unquestioning  faith. 
The  Bible,  the  Church,  God,  may  be  and  are  the  deep- 
est realities  to  many  simple  and  devout  souls,  who  have 
but  little  or  no  understanding  of  the  grounds  of  their 
religious  belief.  But  Christ  has  commanded  us  to 
love  God  with  all  our  mind,  as  well  as  with  the  soul 
and  the  affections,  and  that  faith  can  never  be  the 
highest  faith  in  which  the  head  is  divorced  from  the 
heart,  nor  that  love  the  strongest  and  most  unchange- 
able which  does  not  bring  with  it  a  reverent  mind  to 
bear  upon  the  deep  things  of  God.  We  have  dwelt  at 
some  length  upon  this  early  experiment  of  Christian 
education  in  the  great  city  of  Alexandria,  because 
we  believe  that  in  the  intellectual  activity  and  free- 
dom which  distinguished  that  ancient  foundation  of 
learning,  we  have  the  earliest  historical  beginnings  of 
Christian  education  and  the  true  lines  laid  down  along 
which  the  Church  must  advance  in  her  work  as  "the 
Educator  of  the  people." 

When  we  pass,  in  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries, 
from  Greek  to  Latin  theology,  we  find  ourselves  in  a 
very  different  atmosphere.  "In  the  Latin  Church, 
theology  was  subordinated  to  the  requirements  of  an 
ecclesiastical  hierarchy."  The  Roman  Church  devoted 


32  INFLUENCE   OF    THE  ENGLISH   CHURCH 

its  chief  energies  to  the  important  work  of  discipline 
and  organization.  To  her  we  owe  the  love  of  order, 
ohedience  to  authority,  and  the  solidarity  of  the  one 
body  of  Christ,  which  enabled  the  Church  to  resist 
successfully  the  inroads  of  the  barbarians,  and  to 
erect  upon  the  ruins  of  pagan  Eome  a  spiritual  em- 
pire which,  in  the  scope  of  its  influence  and  in  the 
nations  which  acknowledged  its  sway,  far  surpassed 
the  dreams  of  the  Caesars  or  the  ambition  of  Alexan- 
der the  Great.  The  tendency  of  Latin  theology,  as 
set  forth  in  the  writings  of  Saint  Augustine,  was  to 
regard  the  reason  as  an  untrustworthy  and  dangerous 
guide  in  matters  of  faith.  Divine  revelation  was 
looked  upon  as  a  "deposit"  to  be  handed  down  unim- 
paired and  unchangeable.  It  was  to  be  received  solely 
upon  the  authority  of  the  Church,  and  demanded  of 
all  men  an  implicit  and  unquestioning  acceptance. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that,  for  the  work  of  evangeliz- 
ing the  rude  barbarian  hordes  that  swept  over  Europe 
in  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries,  nothing  could  have 
been  devised  better  than  the  theology  and  discipline 
of  the  Latin  Church.  ^^sTew  races  had  come  forward 
to  take  up  the  work  of  human  progress  and  to  preserve 
and  hand  on  a  Christian  civilization,  and  for  these 
half-civilized  and  untutored  barbarians  it  was  neces- 
sary that  they  should  first  be  taught  as  children,  solely 
upon  the  authority  of  the  Church  and  the  Scriptures. 
Like  all  primitive  peoples  in  the  early  stages  of  their 
ethical  and  spiritual  history,  they  had  first  to  pass 
under  the  yoke  of  the  Law  before  they  were  prepared 
for  the  spirit  and  larger  liberty  of  the  Gospel.     In 


THE  CHUKCH  AS  AN  EDUCATOR  33 

this  work  of  transition  from  the  old  to  the  new  order, 
Saint  Augustine  was  the  leading  spirit.  His  writings 
continued  to  be  the  basis  of  all  subsequent  study  of 
theology  throughout  the  Middle  Ages,  and  the  princi- 
ples of  ecclesiastical  law  and  authority  which  he  enun- 
ciated, dominated  the  mind  of  Western  Europe  for  a 
thousand  years. 

It  is  well  to  keep  in  mind  this  long  supremacy  of 
Saint  Augustine  over  the  thought  of  Western  Chris- 
tendom if  we  are  to  understand  in  what  sense  the 
monasteries  of  the  Middle  Ages  became  the  nurseries 
of  learning,  and  the  part  that  the  Church  played  in 
the  work  of  Christian  education.  From  the  sixth  to 
the  ninth  centuries  the  work  of  evangelizing  the  new 
races,  and  of  winning  them  to  the  obedience  of  the 
Church  went  on  with  unabated  zeal  and  diligence. 
What  the  arms  of  the  Roman  legions  under  Yalentin- 
ian  and  Maximus  could  not  do  the  Faith  and  Disci- 
pline of  the  Church  accomplished.  But  it  is  safe  to 
say  that  in  the  convulsions  that  followed  the  barbarian 
invasions  the  intellectual  energy  of  the  Church  was 
paralyzed. 

A  parting  gleam  of  the  old  Greek  love  of  learning 
issued  in  the  sixth  century  from  the  court  of  Theodoric 
at  Ravenna,  which  was  adorned  by  the  genius  of 
Boethius,  but  after  this  time,  for  a  long  period,  liter- 
ature consisted  almost  entirely  of  sermons  and  of  the 
lives  of  the  saints,  which  were  composed  in  the  mon- 
asteries. The  series  of  historical  events  which  later 
led  to  the  political  and  ecclesiastical  separation  of  the 
West  from  the  speculative  theology  and  thought  of  the 


34 


INFLUENCE    OF    THE    ENGLISH   CHUKCH 


East,  tended  still  further  to  arrest  the  intellectual  de- 
velopment of  the  Latin  Church  and  to  deprive  men 
of  a  knowledge  of  the  language  of  the  New  Testament, 
and  thus  to  cut  them  off  from  the  original  sources  of 
information  concerning  the  faith  and  order  of  prim- 
itive Christianity.  The  complete  absence  of  all  curi- 
osity about  the  language  and  literature  of  the  Greeks 
is  shown  by  the  fact  that  Greek  was  suffered  to  become 
almost  extinct  in  the  monasteries  of  Western  Europe, 
although  there  was  no  time  since  the  foundation  of  the 
Church  in  Eome  that  the  Latins  had  not  some  rela- 
tions with  the  Greek,  or  when  frequent  pilgrimages 
to  the  Holy  Land  had  altogether  ceased. 

That  view  of  God  and  of  the  world  which  regarded 
all  study  which  does  not  concern  the  salvation  of  the 
soul  as  useless  and  profane,  led  in  time  to  the  aban- 
donment of  all  secular  learning.  Even  so  distin- 
guished a  scholar  as  Alcuin  rebuked  the  too  eager 
curiosity  of  Charlemagne  to  pry  into  the  secrets  of  the 
natural  world,  and  we  are  told  by  his  old  biographer 
that  he  would  not  allow  his  pupils  to  read  the  "false- 
hoods" of  Virgil,  as  he  termed  them,  though  he  had 
once  delighted  in  the  study  of  that  Latin  author  him- 
self. 

This  reactionary  spirit  against  the  practice  and 
teaching  of  the  early  Greek  Church  represented  by 
such  men  as  Justin  Martyr,  Clement,  and  Origen,  is 
best  shown  in  the  attitude  of  Gregory  the  Great,  who, 
in  a  letter  to  Desiderius,  Bishop  of  Vienne,  rebuked 
him  for  having  taught  certain  persons  pagan  litera- 


THB^OHUECH    AS    AN    EDUCATOR  35 

ture  and  thus  mingled  "the  praises  of  Jupiter  with 
the  praises  of  Christ." 

As  showing  the  general  disrepute  into  which  the 
classics  had  fallen,  it  was  the  custom  among  the  monks 
of  some  of  the  monasteries,  when  they  were  under  the 
discipline  of  silence,  if  they  desired  the  works  of 
Virgil  or  Horace,  to  scratch  their  ears  like  a  dog,  to 
which  animal  the  literature  of  the  ancients  was  usu- 
ally compared. 

The  intellectual  services  which  the  monasteries  ren- 
dered the  cause  of  learning  were  not  so  much  in  the 
spirit  of  inquiry  and  research  which  they  fostered  as 
in  the  preservation  of  Christian  and  pagan  writings 
and  in  the  perpetuation  and  cultivation  of  the  Latin 
language.  It  is  an  undoubted  fact  that  for  a  consid- 
erable period  of  time  the  monasteries  of  Europe  were 
the  only  libraries.  The  monks  transcribed  the  works 
of  classical  and  Christian  antiquity,  and  were  the 
chief  instruments  of  preserving  and  keeping  alive  a 
knowledge  of  the  classics.  But  though  they  rendered 
incalculable  service  to  the  cause  of  education  by  the 
preservation  of  many  ancient  manuscripts,  yet  noth- 
ing could  better  describe  their  manner  of  regarding 
them  than  the  zeal  which  they  sometimes  displayed 
in  erasing  many  of  the  most  valuable  parchments,  to 
write  them  over  with  their  own  legends  and  lives  of 
the  saints.  In  considering  the  part  which  the  monas- 
tic establishments  of  the  Middle  Ages  played  in  the 
evolution  of  higher  education  in  Europe,  it  is  well 
also  to  remember  that  their  founders  intended  that 


36  INFLUENCE   OF    THE   ENGLISH   CHUKCH 

their  disciples  should  be  patterns  of  the  highest  Chris- 
tian life,  rather  than  theologians  and  teachers.  In 
its  first  inception,  inonasticism  was  primarily  an  in- 
stitution for  the  training  and  cultivation  of  the  spir- 
itual life.  In  the  beginning  the  monasteries  were 
founded  by  laymen,  who  had  little  or  no  theological 
training.  By  many  of  the  monks  ecclesiastical  office 
was  regarded  as  inconsistent  with  the  highest  spiritual 
life.  Pachomius  charged  his  brotherhood  to  shun  or- 
dination as  a  snare,  and  it  was  a  common  saying  in 
Egypt  that  "a  monk  ought  to  avoid  bishops  and 
women,"  for  neither  will  allow  him  to  rest  quietly  in 
his  cell  or  to  devote  himself  to  the  contemplation  of 
heavenly  things.  Thus,  in  the  beginning,  the  usual 
educational  and  theological  requirements  for  those 
who  entered  the  ranks  of  the  secular  clergy  were  not 
required  of  those  who  applied  for  admission  to  the 
monastic  orders.  And  it  is  probable  that  this  absence 
of  all  educational  tests  exercised  a  lasting  influence 
upon  their  subsequent  history.  They  were  almost 
exclusively  social  and  religious  communities,  in  which 
the  life  of  prayer  and  contemplation  was  varied  by 
labors  for  the  good  of  mankind. 

The  monks  cleared  the  forests,  built  roads,  re- 
claimed wastes,  cultivated  agriculture ;  they  civilized 
the  rude  barbarian  population  by  which  they  were  sur- 
rounded ;  their  monasteries  served  as  places  of  refuge 
from  the  slayer  and  the  avenger ;  and  they  stood  be- 
tween the  cruelty  and  rapacity  of  the  feudal  lord  and 
his  vassal.  During  the  worst  of  the  wild  days  which 
followed  the  Teutonic  conquest  they  kept  alive  in  the 


THE  CHUECH  AS  AN  EDUCATOR         37 

breasts  of  men  a  sense  of  the  Divine  justice  and  right- 
eousness. Socially,  they  were  on  the  side  of  peace  and 
order ;  on  the  side  of  purity,  of  liberty  for  the  slave, 
and  protection  for  the  oppressed.  In  the  religious 
teachings  of  the  clergy — though  often  confused  with 
error  and  superstition — the  great  central  verities  of 
the  Christian  faith  were  preserved  and  handed  on. 
This  was  the  inestimable  and  lasting  service  which 
they  rendered  the  cause  of  Christianity  and  of  civiliza- 
tion in  the  world.  The  part  which  they  played  in  the 
intellectual  progress  of  mankind  was  negative  rather 
than  positive.  They  safeguarded  the  records  of  classi- 
cal and  Christian  literature  and  preserved  many  an- 
cient and  valuable  manuscripts,  which  later  served  as 
the  basis  for  the  revival  of  learning  and  letters  in  the 
fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries.  A  good  deal  of 
composition  proceeded  from  the  monasteries,  but  it 
was  a  composition  which  in  the  range  of  its  ideas  was 
exceedingly  meagre  and  limited.  But  it  cannot  be 
claimed  by  the  advocates  of  mediaeval  monasticism 
that  it  fostered  the  love  of  learning,  except  in  a  very 
narrow  and  restricted  sense.  To  love  truth  sincerely 
means  to  pursue  it  with  unflagging  zeal,  and  to  be 
prepared  to  follow  the  light  of  evidence  even  to  the 
most  unwelcome  conclusions.  This  was  not  the  atti- 
tude of  mind  that  was  fostered  in  the  monasteries. 
The  blind  and  unquestioning  obedience  which  was  ex- 
acted from  all  who  took  the  "monastic  vows,"  the  duty 
of  absolute  submission  to  the  teaching  and  authority 
of  the  Church,  which  rendered  all  investigation  into 
the  original  sources  of  religious  belief  impious  and 


38 


INFLUENCE   OF    THE   ENGLISH   CHURCH 


■/^ 


profane,  tlie  crowd  of  superstitions  attributed  to  di- 
rect inspiration  of  God,  which  barred  the  path  of 
knowledge,  the  charge  of  heresy  which  was  so  readily 
brought  against  every  bold  inquirer,  effectually  put  a 
check  to  all  original  and  independent  thinking,  and 
placed  fetters  upon  the  human  mind  which  made  the 
earnest  pursuit  of  truth  impossible.  "It  is  an  open 
question,"  says  Mr.  Lecky,  "whether  the  good  that 
monasteries  did  the  cause  of  learning  as  the  recepta- 
cles of  literature  was  not  more  than  counterbalanced 
by  the  harm  which  they  did  the  human  mind  in  di- 
vorcing it  from  all  secular  learning  and  by  inculcating 
a  spirit  of  abject  credulity,  which  it  is  the  first  duty 
of  the  true  educator  to  eradicate."  In  no  sense,  there- 
fore, can  the  monasteries  of  mediaeval  Europe  be  con- 
sidered as  the  precursors  of  the  great  universities  of 
England  and  of  the  Continent.  The  free  and  un- 
trammelled spirit  with  which  the  modern  scholar  at 
any  of  our  great  universities  pursues  his  independent 
investigations,  is  as  different  from  the  habit  of  mind 
and  the  blind  unquestioning  submission  to  authority 
which  prevailed  in  the  monasteries,  as  it  is  possible  to 
imagine. 

We  have  only  to  study  the  career  of  an  independent 
and  inquiring  spirit  like  Eoger  Bacon — ^himself  a 
monk — to  realize  the  difference  between  the  intellect- 
ual freedom  of  the  modem  university  and  the  narrow- 
ness and  intolerance  of  mediaeval  Catholicism.  At  a 
time  when  physical  science  was  neglected  and  dis- 
couraged by  the  authorities  of  the  Church,  this  man, 
with  transcendent    genius  and  inflexible  determina- 


THE  CHURCH  AS  AN  EDUCATOB         39 

tion,  applied  himself  to  the  study  of  nature.  Four- 
teen years  of  his  life  were  spent  in  prison,  and  when 
he  died  his  name  was  blasted  as  a  magician.  Could 
there  be  a  more  striking  instance  of  one  who  resisted 
the  tendencies  of  his  age  and  succeeded  in  spite  of  his 
environment  ? 

In  invention  and  original  research,  which  are  the 
distinguishing  features  of  modem  education,  the  mon- 
asteries were  singularly  barren.  The  invention  of 
gunpowder  and  of  the  mariner's  compass,  which  have 
exerted  such  lasting  influence  upon  the  history  of  civ- 
ilization, are  in  no  way  to  be  attributed  to  the  monks 
of  the  Middle  Ages.  The  great  intellectual  move- 
ment of  the  Middle  Ages,  Scholasticism,  which  was  an 
attempt  to  bring  the  theology  of  the  Church  into  har- 
mony with  reason  and  philosophy,  originated  not  in 
the  monasteries,  but  in  the  schools  established  in  con- 
nection with  the  great  cathedrals.  The  very  name 
"scholasticism"  is  derived  from  the  episcopal  schools 
of  Lyon  and  Orleans  established  by  Charlemagne  and 
Alcuin  in  the  ninth  century.  The  two  great  leaders 
of  scholasticism  in  the  Middle  Ages,  Duns  Scotus  and 
Thomas  Aquinas,  received  their  education  not  in 
monastic  establishments,  but  in  the  universities  of 
Oxford  and  ^N'aples.  Duns  Scotus  pursued  his  studies, 
first  at  Oxford,  then  at  Paris,  while  Thomas  Aquinas 
was  educated  at  the  University  of  l^aples  and  later 
in  the  Dominican  school  of  Cologne.  William  of 
Occam  and  Roger  Bacon  received  their  education  at 
Oxford  and  Paris.  Peter  Lombard  studied  juris- 
prudence and  the  liberal  arts  at  the  University  of 


40       INFLUENCE  OF  THE  ENGLISH  CHUECH 

Bologna,  while  Abelard  got  his  training  in  dialectics 
and  philosophy  at  the  cathedral  school  of  I^Totre 
Dame.  We  look  almost  in  vain  for  any  theologian 
and  scholar  of  note  in  the  Middle  Ages  who  was  solely 
the  product  of  the  monastic  system.  It  was  not  until 
education  passed  from  the  monasteries  to  the  universi- 
ties and  cathedral  schools  and  a  fresh  impulse  was 
given  intellectual  activity  by  the  labors  of  William 
of  Champeaux  and  other  eminent  teachers,  that  we 
have  anything  like  the  beginnings  of  modern  educa- 
tion. The  cathedral  schools  like  that  of  Xotre  Dame, 
the  school  of  Seville  under  Saint  Isidore  of  Spain  in 
the  fifth  century,  the  school  of  Bologna,  which  tradi- 
tion carried  back  as  far  as  the  reign  of  Theodosius 
II.,  in  A.D.  433,  and  the  cathedral  school  of  York, 
were  later  developed  into  seminaries  of  general  learn- 
ing, and  are  the  true  historic  foundations  upon  which 
the  great  universities  of  Europe  and  of  England  were 
afterward  erected.  Indeed,  as  far  as  our  studies  have 
carried  us  in  this  paper,  we  have  not  been  able  to  find 
a  single  instance  in  which  a  great  monastery  devel- 
oped later  into  an  institution  of  higher  learning  for 
the  teaching  of  philosophy  and  the  liberal  arts.  The 
monastic  discipline,  while  it  appealed  to  spirits  of  a 
mystical  tendency  and  offered  attractions  to  the  culti- 
vation of  the  spiritual  life,  failed  to  satisfy  the  men- 
tal craving  of  another  class  of  minds  that  were  ex- 
ercised in  bold  speculations  which  often  pass  beyond 
the  boundaries  of  orthodoxy,  and  which  naturally 
therefore,  sought  a  wider  arena  and  a  freer  intellect- 


THE  CHUECH  AS  AN  EDUCATOR         41 

ual  atmosphere,  than  were  to  be  found  in  the  seclusion 
of  the  cloister  and  the  cell. 

It  deserves  to  be  stated  here,  however,  that  the 
monasteries-  of  Ireland  and  Scotland,  whose  mission- 
aries and  teachers  in  the  sixth  and  seventh  centuries/ 
contributed  so  much  to  the  evangelization  and  convert 
sion  of  heathen  and  Saxon  England,  maintained  a  / 
higher  standard  of  scholarship  than  their  European 
neighbors,  and  a  knowledge  of  Greek  and  of  Hellenic, 
culture  was  cherished  among  the  Irish-Scotch  clergyl 
long  after  it  had  disappeared  from  the  Continent. 

John  Scotus,  whom  tradition  says  was  a  Scotchman, 
was  one  of  the  few  theologians  of  his  time  who  knew 
any  Greek ;  and  as  showing  the  greater  liberality  of 
their  views,  it  is  curious  to  read  of  Irish  monks  pro- 
claiming in  Germany,  to  the  great  scandal  of  Boni- 
face, the  possible  salvability  of  the  heathen  at  a  time 
when  it  was  the  universal  belief  that  all  who  died 
outside  of  the  Catholic  Church  were  doomed  to  uni- 
versal woe. 

The  story  of  Saint  Columba,  who,  when  on  a  visit 
to  his  friend  and  former  teacher.  Saint  Einnian,  sur- 
reptitiously copied  a  manuscript  belonging  to  his  host, 
may  well  serve  to  illustrate  the  zeal  for  learning  and 
the  fame  for  scholarship  which  distinguished  this  an- 
cient Church  of  Ireland.  When  discovered  in  his 
literary  theft  by  Saint  Einnian,  to  whom  the  manu- 
script belonged,  Saint  Columba  refused  to  give  up  his 
hard-earned  treasure.  I^ot  until  he  had  instigated  a 
war  between  the  rival  kings  of  Connaught  and  Diar- 


42  INFLUENCE   OF    THF^  ENGLISH   CHUECH 

maid,  and  a  council  of  bishops  and  abbots  had  ad- 
judged him  guilty,  did  this  zealous  Christian  scholar 
bow  to  their  decree,  and  crossing  over  to  Scotland  with 
twelve  companions,  founded  the  great  monastery  of 
lona.  This  same  wonderful  Irish  Church  sent  forth 
in  A.D.  614  Saint  Gall  to  Switzerland  and  Saint  Co- 
lumban  as  far  as  the  Italian  cloisters  of  Bobbio,  and 
in  A.D.  635  Saint  Aidan  to  be  the  bishop  of  the  ITor- 
thumbrians.  True  to  the  traditions  of  his  Church, 
we  see  Saint  Aidan  choosing  as  his  home  the  island  of 
Lindisf  arne  rather  than  the  royal  city  of  Bamborough, 
and  training  under  his  own  eye  a  school  of  twelve 
picked  boys,  who  were  to  be  the  future  teachers  and 
leaders  of  Christianity  in  the  !N^orth  of  England.  But 
while  it  is  true  to  say  that  monasteries  like  lona,  under 
Saint  Columba,  Lindisf  arne  under  Saint  Aidan ;  Bee, 
in  IsTormandy,  under  Saint  Anselm;  Jarrow  in  the 
time  of  Bede,  and  Glastonbury  in  the  time  of  Dunstan, 
became  the  homes  and  nurseries  of  knowledge,  yet  the 
pursuit  of  knowledge  and  a  spirit  of  inquiry  were 
never  of  the  essence  of  the  monastic  life,  and  a  differ- 
ent organization  was  needed  for  the  promotion  of 
higher  education.  So,  in  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth 
centuries,  grew  up  the  great  universities  of  England, 
Oxford  and  Cambridge,  as  lay  corporations,  ^o  for- 
mal foundation  can  be  shown  for  their  origin.  They 
did  not  owe  their  beginnings  to  any  acts  of  popes  or 
kings,  but  to  the  spontaneous  concourse  of  lecturers 
and  students. 

"The  university  students  of   the  thirteenth    cen- 
tury," says  Wakeman,  "were  an  independent,  cosmo- 


THE  CHURCH  AS  AN  EDUCATOR         43 

politan  race,  living  from  hand  to  moutli,  often  hun- 
gry, always  imruly,  congregated  in  squalid  inns  and 
lodging-houses,  without  discipline,  and  sometimes 
without  religion."  It  is  not  surprising  that  this  seeth- 
ing and  turbulent  concourse  of  earnest  spirits,  bent 
upon  the  pursuit  of  knowledge,  should  have  early  at- 
tracted the  attention  of  the  friars.  Here  was  the 
Church's  opportunity,  and  she  was  not  slow  to  take 
advantage  of  it  "The  Dominicans  and  Franciscans 
settled  in  the  grimy  purlieus  of  Paris  and  of  Oxford 
and  soon  acquired  a  commanding  influence."  Just 
what  control  they  exercised  over  the  religious  and  aca- 
demic life  of  the  students  is  not  known,  but  we  infer 
that  it  must  have  been  considerable,  and  that  such  in- 
fluence as  they  wielded  would  be  in  the  interest  of  the 
Roman  Church  and  papal  supremacy.  If,  therefore, 
Oxford  in  the  thirteenth  century  was  not  to  become  a 
mere  adaptation  and  copy  of  the  monastic  idea,  it  was 
necessary  that  a  different  system  of  education  should 
be  inaugurated.  Accordingly,  in  a.d.  1264,  we  find 
one  Walter  De  Merton,  the  real  founder  of  the  English 
college  system,  establishing  within  the  precincts  of  the 
university,  "a  great  seminary  for  the  education  of  the 
secular  clergy."  Among  the  provisions  governing  the 
discipline  of  his  college,  Merton  forbade  any  of  his 
students  ever  to  take  the  monastic  vow.  "He  ordained 
that  they  should  apply  themselves  to  studying  liberal 
arts  and  philosophy  before  entering  upon  a  course  of 
theology,"  thus  raising  the  standard  of  education 
among  the  clergy.  'No  ascetic  obligations  of  any  kind 
were  laid  upon  them.    Their  sole  employment  was  to 


44 


INFLUENCE  OF  THE  ENGLISH  CHUECH 


be  study,  and  he  enjoined  them  to  maintain  their  in- 
dependence against  the  encroachments  of  the  friars 
and  of  the  papacy.  Thus  did  this  wise  educator  and 
public-spirited  man  lay  the  foundations  of  liberal  edu- 
cation in  England,  and  determine  the  future  constitu- 
tion which  both  of  the  great  English  universities  were 
destined  later  to  assume.  But  we  must  not  imagine 
that  the  religious  orders  surrendered  the  control  which 
they  had  acquired  over  the  academical  studies  of  the 
students  at  Oxford  without  a  struggle.  Of  their  pros- 
elytizing activity  we  have  abundant  evidence  during 
the  century  which  succeeded  the  founding  of  Merton 
College.  The  lay  and  secular  element  continued  to 
rebel  against  their  encroachments,  and  in  a.d.  1358  we 
find  a  number  of  statutes  aimed  against  the  mendicant 
orders.  In  a.d.  1365  the  Pope  entered  the  lists  on  be- 
half of  the  friars,  and  the  University  authorities  were 
forced  to  repeal  the  obnoxious  statutes.  But  still  the 
feud  continued.  One  cause  of  Wickliffe's  great  popu- 
larity at  Oxford  was  due  to  his  unsparing  denuncia- 
tion of  the  mendicants,  and  the  decline  of  their  influ- 
ence is  to  be  attributed  in  no  small  measure  to  the 
movement  which  he  initiated.  In  asserting  the  right 
of  private  judgment  and  in  exposing  the  ecclesiastical 
abuses  of  his  time,  Wickliffe  was  striking  at  the  very 
roots  of  mediaeval  Catholicism,  and  enunciating  prin- 
ciples which  bore  their  legitimate  fruit  in  the  Angli- 
can Reformation. 

In  considering  the  growth  of  religious  liberty  in 
England  it  is  certainly  noteworthy  that  the  man  who 
was  among  the  first  to  challenge  the  supremacy  of  the 


THE  CHUBCH  AS  AN  EDUCATOR         45 

Pope,  and  to  give  to  the  English  nation  a  translation 
of  the  Scriptures,  was  peculiarly  the  product  of  the 
English  college  system,  from  which  all  members  of 
monastic  orders  were  rigidly  excluded.  It  would  be 
correct,  therefore,  to  say  that  not  only  were  the  monas- 
tic orders  in  no  way  responsible  for  the  beginnings 
of  higher  education  in  England,  but  they  were  the 
greatest  enemies  and  opponents  of  progress  that  the 
universities  had  to  contend  against,  and  not  until  Ox- 
ford and  Cambridge  were  emancipated  from  their  in- 
termeddling policy  have  we  anything  like  a  true 
scholastic  atmosphere  and  tradition.  The  influence 
which  these  two  great  foundations  of  learning  have 
exercised  upon  the  development  of  the  national  life 
of  the  English  people  is  a  subject  too  vast  for  the  nar- 
row limits  of  this  paper.  They  have  been  the  train- 
ing grounds  of  the  English  clergy  for  six  centuries. 
They  have  stamped  their  mark  upon  the  national 
church  and  upon  the  national  character.  They  have 
been  foremost  in  the  work  of  public  education,  and 
from  them  has  emanated  almost  every  great  religious 
and  political  movement  which  has  shaped  the  policy 
and  guided  the  destiny  of  the  British  empire.  It  was 
from  Oxford  that  William  of  Wykeham,  Bishop  of 
Winchester,  founder  of  the  English  public  school  sys- 
tem, got  his  idea  of  applying  the  collegiate  system  to 
the  training  of  boys.  With  the  revival  of  learning  in 
the  fifteenth  century  we  find  the  universities  of  Eng- 
land the  centres  of  that  great  humanistic  and  religious 
movement  which  culminated  later  in  the  Reformation. 
Erasmus,  writing  from  Oxford  in  a.d.  1497,  speaks  of 


46 


INFLUENCE   OF    THE   ENGLISH   CHUKOH 


the  rich  harvest  of  classical  learning  already  flourish- 
ing in  that  institution,  and  declares  that  "he  could  well 
nigh  forget  Italy  in  the  society  of  Colet,  Lynacre,  and 
Moore."  It  is  not  my  purpose  here  to  trace  the  suc- 
cessive changes  through  which  the  universities  of  Eng- 
land have  passed  from  the  time  when  Henry  YIIL 
extorted  from  the  scholars  of  Oxford  an  unwilling 
recognition  of  his  divorce  from  Katharine  of  Aragon, 
through  the  stormy  period  of  the  Civil  Wars,  down 
to  their  present  unprecedented  efficiency  and  useful- 
ness. But  in  this  brief  historical  survey  it  will  suffice 
to  point  out  that  it  was  from  Oxford  that  the  Meth- 
odist revival  in  the  eighteenth  century  took  its  rise, 
and  later  the  "Tractarian  movement"  of  a.d.  1835, 
which  has  so  profoundly  influenced  the  Church's  life 
both  in  England  and  this  country,  and  which  got  its 
distinctive  name,  "the  Oxford  movement,"  because  it 
originated  in  Oxford,  and  received  its  first  impulse 
from  those  great  scholars  like  Pusey,  Keble,  and 
iN'ewman,  who  were  in  attendance  upon  the  University 
at  that  time.  The  most  important  modification  which 
the  universities  have  undergone  in  the  last  thirty  years 
is  the  abolition  of  "religious  tests,"  adopted  as  a  Gov- 
ernment measure  and  passed  by  the  House  of  Lords 
in  A.D.  1871.  "This  great  concession  to  religious  lib- 
erty was  brought  about,"  says  Mr.  Broderick  in  his 
delightful  history  of  Oxford  University,  "by  a  per- 
sistent movement  chiefly  emanating  from  the  univer- 
sities themselves.  Experience  has  not  justified  the 
fears  of  the  opponents  of  the  bill,  neither  the  religious 


THE  CHURCH  AS  AN  EDUCATOE         47 

character  nor  the  social  peace  of  the  University,"  he 
continues,  "has  been  in  the  slightest  degree  impaired 
by  the  admission  of  non-conformists  to  its  degrees  and 
endowments." 

If  all  official  connection  with  the  Church  has  been 
taken  away,  except  as  regards  the  professors  of  the 
theological  faculty  and  the  obligation  laid  upon  all 
colleges  to  attend  the  daily  services  of  the  Church,  it 
cannot  be  said  that  the  influence  of  the  Church  upon 
the  universities  has  grown  less,  but  rather  greater.  In 
ceasing  to  be  clerical  and  aristocratic  they  have  be- 
come national  and  democratic.  Never  have  the  uni- 
versities been  more  popular  than  they  are  to-day — 
never  have  they  exerted  a  wider  educational  and  re- 
ligious influence  or  been  more  deeply  and  strongly 
enthroned  in  the  hearts  of  English-speaking  peoples. 
The  lines  along  which  their  historical  development 
have  been  traced  are  the  true  lines  along  which  all 
higher  education  conducted  under  the  auspices  of  the 
Church  must  advance. 

By  the  removal  of  theological  tests  they  have  not 
ceased  to  be  less  the  strongholds  of  Anglican  and 
Catholic  theology.  By  opening  their  degrees  to  non- 
conformists they  have  become  the  great  recruiting- 
stations  of  the  Anglican  Communion  in  England. 
And  if  those  clergy  of  the  Established  Church  who 
are  fighting  the  Education  Bill  of  Mr.  Balfour  would 
learn  a  lesson  from  the  history  of  universities,  they 
would  see  that  the  Church  and  Christian  education 
have  nothing  to  gain  by  a  sectarian  spirit. 


48  INFLUENCE   OF    THE   ENGLISH   CHURCH 

To  abolish  religious  tests  in  the  universities  and  to 
retain  them  in  the  public  schools  is  an  anachronism 
for  which  there  is  no  sufficient  justification. 

The  interests  of  education  and  religion  must  inevi- 
tably suffer  whenever  the  profession  of  the  teacher  is 
subjected  to  a  religious  test,  and  the  freedom  of  the 
chair  is  curtailed  by  the  holding  of  theological  opin- 
ions about  which  professing  Christians  differ.  This 
does  not  mean  that  religion  should  not  continue  to  be 
taught  in  the  public  schools,  but  it  should  be  upon  the 
broad  and  catholic  basis  of  the  Church  catechism,  and 
not  in  the  interests  of  any  party  or  with  a  view  to 
proselytizing  children  of  non-conformists  who  are 
forced  to  attend  the  parochial  schools  of  the  Estab- 
lished Church. 

The  history  of  the  Koman  C  atholic  schools  of  France 
should  afford  an  instructive  warning  to  the  too  zealous 
advocates  of  Anglican  ascendency  in  the  public  schools 
of  England.  Twenty  years  ago  the  Koman  Church 
had  virtual  control  of  education  in  France.  The  cate- 
chism was  on  a  par  with  arithmetic,  and  Roman  Cath- 
olic prayers  were  recited  several  times  a  day.  So 
great  was  the  power  of  the  clergy  that  the  local  priest 
became  the  real  ruler  of  the  local  teacher.  But  secta- 
rian narrowness  and  theological  bigotry  perverted  the 
purposes  of  Christian  education  and  subjected  the 
schools  to  the  ecclesiastical  domination  of  the  Eoman 
hierarchy.  This  was  a  state  of  things  which  could 
not  last.  And  so,  in  a.d.  1882,  the  Chambers,  after  a 
long  and  stormy  discussion,  voted  the  secularization 
of  the  common  schools.    Now,  "religious  instruction,'^ 


THE  CHURCH  AS  AN  EDUCATOR         49 

so-called,  is  forbidden  by  law  in  the  public  schools  of 
France,  and  the  Roman  Church  has  lost  an  opportu- 
nity for  upbuilding  the  moral  life  of  the  nation 
through  its  children  and  for  furthering  the  cause  of 
Christian  education  in  that  country  which  it  will 
never  regain,  so  long  as  it  pursues  its  present  fatuous 
policy. 

If  the  history  of  education  under  the  control  of  the 
Church  teaches  us  anything,  it  is  that  scholarship  must 
be  free  and  untrammelled.  Let  the  Church  contend 
for  the  Faith  once  delivered  to  the  Saints.  Let  her 
place  her  great  preachers  and  doctors  in  the  pulpits 
of  her  schools  and  college  chapels  as  in  Saint  Mary's, 
Oxford.  Let  her  preserve  the  tradition  and  defend 
to  the  utmost  the  distinctive  doctrines  of  the  Anglican 
Communion,  but  let  the  spirit  of  inquiry  be  unre- 
stricted by  religious  tests,  and  the  pursuit  of  truth 
unbiased  by  party  prejudice  or  theological  preposses- 
sions. IsTever  in  the  history  of  the  Established  Church 
has  the  value  of  the  universities  to  the  cause  of  true 
religion  been  so  manifest  as  since  the  Education  Act  of 
A.D.I 870,  which  set  them  free  from  the  last  vestiges 
of  mediaeval  Catholicism.  Whenever  Christianity 
has  been  attacked  in  our  own  time,  the  chief  burden  of 
defence  has  fallen  upon  the  shoulders  of  the  English 
Church.  When  the  authenticity  and  trustworthiness 
of  the  early  Christian  records  have  been  called  in 
question  by  the  extreme  advocates  of  German  criti- 
cism, the  answer  to  their  hasty  and  ill-considered  con- 
clusions has  come  from  the  Cambridge  and  Oxford 
schools  of  biblical  scholars.     Against  the  humanita- 


50  INFLUENCE   OF    THE  ENGLISH   CHUECH 

rianism  of  Strauss  and  Renan,  the  agnosticism  of 
Huxley,  the  pretensions  of  the  Roman  hierarchy  or 
the  excesses  of  extremists  within  the  Anglican  Com- 
mimion  itself,  the  scholars  of  these  great  Christian 
universities  have  been  the  true  defenders  of  the 
Church  and  the  safest  leaders  of  the  people.  The 
whole  history  of  Anglo-Saxon  civilization  is  the  his- 
tory of  the  slow  development  and  the  gradual  emanci- 
pation of  higher  education  in  England. 

And  the  American  Church  can  never  be  the  Church 
of  the  People,  until  she  becomes  in  this  country  what 
the  Established  Church  is  in  England,  the  leader  of 
the  religious  thought  and  life  of  the  nation.  She 
must  produce  scholars  whose  permanent  contributions 
to  the  cause  of  learning  will  command  the  confidence 
and  admiration  of  the  whole  Christian  world.  She 
must  no  longer  be  forced  to  borrow  her  polemics  and 
her  text-books  of  theology  from  the  theological  facul- 
ties of  the  English  Church. 

The  American  Church  produces  as  earnest  and  as 
faithful  a  body  of  clergy  as  are  to  be  found  in  any 
Church  in  Christendom.  Among  them  we  have  men 
of  distinguished  attainments  and  of  marked  executive 
ability.  There  are  many  true  prophets  and  pastors 
among  us,  but  where  are  our  scholars  ? 

It  is  well  known  that  in  England  the  great  Protes- 
tant bodies  look  to  the  scholars  of  Cambridge  and  Ox- 
ford for  many  of  their  text-books  of  theology  and  for 
their  weapons  of  defence  against  the  infidel  and  the 
agnostic  Why  should  not  the  American  Church  ren- 
der the  same  service  to  the  religious  bodies  of  this 


THE  CHUECH  AS  AN  EDUCATOR         51 

country  ?  We  have  done  much  to  educate  the  people 
of  the  United  States  through  our  Prayer-Book  and 
Church  Services,  in  the  principles  of  liturgical  wor- 
ship and  reverent  ritual,  but  as  yet  we  have  produced 
no  great  centre  of  learning  which  can  be  called 
national  or  which  represents  the  American  Church. 
The  history  of  our  Church  colleges  is  not  pleasant 
reading.  It  is  a  record  of  impoverished  treasuries, 
of  inadequate  equipment,  of  insufficient  teaching 
force,  of  strife  engendered  by  undue  diocesan  con- 
trol in  the  affairs  of  the  college,  of  heroism  and 
self-sacrifice  from  poorly  paid  professors.  Wealthy 
laymen  have  given  millions  to  build  up  Harvard, 
Yale,  and  Princeton,  and  but  thousands  to  the  ad- 
vancement of  higher  education  under  the  control  of 
the  Church.  When  we  seek  for  an  explanation  of  the 
general  apathy  and  indifference  of  the  Church  in 
this  country  to  the  cause  of  higher  education,  which 
is  in  such  striking  contrast  to  the  opposite  policy  pur- 
sued by  the  Mother  Church  of  England,  the  reason 
is  not  readily  forthcoming.  'No  doubt  the  Church 
college  has  had  to  bear  some  of  the  odium  which 
attaches,  in  the  mind  of  the  average  American,  to 
the  denominational  college  as  such;  and  while  the 
Church  is  not  in  any  sense  a  denomination,  yet  in  this 
case  she  has  had  to  suffer  for  the  mistakes  of  others 
and  for  that  partisan  and  sectarian  spirit  which  has 
so  often  marred  the  work  of  Christian  education. 
Something  also  may  be  due  to  the  fact  that  so  many 
of  our  Church  institutions,  especially  in  their  first 
inception,  have  been  local  rather  than  national,  and 


52 


INFLUENCE   OF    THE   ENGLISH   CHURCH 


diocesan  rather  than  the  result  of  the  united  effort  and 
thought  of  the  whole  Church.  It  is  not  my  purpose 
to  dwell  further  upon  the  failure  of  the  Church  in 
this  country  to  build  up  and  endow  a  great  Christian 
university  which  should  adequately  express  her  cath- 
olic spirit.  Perhaps  the  time  was  not  ripe  for  that 
highest  achievement  of  Christian  civilization  and  re- 
ligious faith.  N'ot  until  we  had  a  united  nation  as 
well  as  a  united  Church  could  we  have  that  institution 
of  higher  learning  which  should  represent  the  whole 
Church  and  be  at  once  truly  catholic  and  truly  na- 
tional. 

We  believe  the  time  has  come  in  the  history  of  the 
American  Church  when  she  must  apply  herself  to  this 
great  undertaking  in  a  more  serious  spirit  than  she 
has  ever  done  before.  It  may  be  that  the  Church  col- 
leges which  are  to-day  working  for  the  cause  of  Chris- 
tian education  may  prove  the  pioneers  and  feeders  of 
that  larger  and  greater  institution  which  is  to  crown 
their  labors,  and  for  which  they  have  done  a  work  of 
needed  preparation. 

But  I  would  be  blind  to  the  needs  of  the  present  and 
the  teachings  of  the  past,  did  I  not  seek  to  impress 
upon  you  this  lesson  of  the  Christian  centuries.  The 
American  Church  can  never  be  the  educator  of  the 
people  until  she  has  some  great  centre  of  education 
from  which  to  educate.  She  will  never  gain  the  ear 
of  the  greatest  age  for  secondary  and  higher  education 
in  the  history  of  mankind,  until  she  leads  in  the  work 
of  education.  She  can  never  discharge  the  high  office 
to  which  God  has  called  her,  as  leader  and  teacher. 


THE  CHURCH  AS  AN  EDUCATOR         53 

until  she  has  an  institution  of  national  and  world- 
wide reputation  from  whence  to  teach  and  mould  the 
thought  of  the  nation  and  the  Church.  She  will  never 
be  adequately  or  completely  presented  before  the  peo- 
ple of  this  country  until  she  is  presented  to  them 
through  that  which  is  distinctive  of  Anglo-Saxon 
Christianity  from  the  beginning — a  university,  domi- 
nated by  the  spirit  of  Christ,  true  to  the  great  verities 
of  the  Christian  faith,  and  welcoming  every  forward 
advance  of  science  and  of  reverent  scholarship  in  every 
department  of  human  learning. 

The  Church  is  fitted,  as  is  no  other  religious  body, 
by  long  centuries  of  training  and  experience  in  the 
work  of  Christian  education,  to  realize  the  great  ideal 
of  a  Christian  university.  It  is  peculiarly  her  mission 
and  her  privilege.  With  her  ancient  creeds,  her  his- 
toric  episcopate,  the  continuity  of  her  life  and  doctrine 
extending  back  through  the  ages,  she  stands  amid  the 
successive  generations  of  men  like  some  impregnable 
Gibraltar;  she  is  strongly  and  grandly  conservative, 
and  yet  because  the  Truth  which  makes  her  free  is 
not  a  barren  and  crystallized  product,  but  a  living  and 
growing  life,  capable  of  fresh  developments,  of  new 
applications,  and  of  ever  greater  comprehensiveness, 
she  is  able  to  welcome  every  achievement  of  modem 
scholarship,  as  a  contribution  to  the  cause  of  Chris- 
tianity and  Christian  civilization  in  the  world. 


LECTURE  III 


LECTURE  III 

€i|e  C{)urc{|  a^  tfyt  €t)am{)ion  of  tt^e 

TKUE  Liberty,  or  to  use  that  peculiarly  Anglo- 
Saxon  phrase,  "The  rights  of  the  people," 
has  a  different  signification  in  Anglo-Saxon 
thought  from  what  it  has  in  the  mind  or  conception 
of  any  other  race.  It  means  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  some- 
thing far  more  dignified  and  fundamental  and  far- 
reaching  and  conservative  than  it  does  anywhere  else. 
In  fact,  the  conception  of  the  people's  rights  as  it  ap- 
pears to  the  Anglo-Saxon  mind,  may  almost  be  taken 
as  a  race  characteristic;  a  mental  note  of  differentia- 
tion from  all  the  other  races,  even  those  most  nearly 
akin. 

Elsewhere,  this  idea,  where  it  has  any  existence  at 
all,  is  negative  and  destructive ;  it  partakes  largely  of 
the  nature  of  a  protest  against  something  else,  and  pri- 
marily, an  effort  to  destroy  or  pull  down  or  remove 
that  other  thing. 

As  an  illustration  of  what  is  meant,  we  may  take 
the  history  of  the  struggle  for  liberty  or  popular  rights 
in  the  development  of  any  race  other  than  the  Anglo- 
Saxon.  Any  nation  of  the  Latin  or  Teuton  races 
would  equally  well  serve  our  purpose.  The  French, 
for  instance,  until  almost  within  a  century  past,  rested 
under  a  tyranny  rarely,  if  ever,  equalled  in  the  history 
of  the  world;  certainly  without  parallel  in  modern 

67 


58 


INFLUENCE    OF    THE    ENGLISH    CHURCH 


times.  Teachers  it  had  of  liberty,  fraternity  and 
equality,  and  the  rights  of  the  people;  preachers  of 
revolt  and  independence ;  but  they  were  blind  leaders 
of  the  blind.  They  had  been  caught  and  dazzled  by 
a  name,  and  had  no  genuine  conception  of  the  meaning 
of  the  terms  they  were  using.  They  were  without  the 
historic  knowledge  or  sense  of  the  meaning  of  the 
words ;  and  wanting  that  view-point,  the  words  are  all 
meaningless  from  the  Anglo-Saxon's  ground.  In  other 
words,  the  terms  were  to  the  French  mind  a  creation, 
not  a  growth,  and  hence  they  dijffered  absolutely  from 
the  Anglo-Saxon  meaning. 

Consequently,  when  the  views  of  these  leaders  and 
teachers  found  expression  in  acts,  those  acts  were  de- 
structive, not  constructive;  revolutionary,  not  evolu- 
tionary ;  a  pulling  down  of  what  already  existed,  in- 
stead of  a  lengthening  of  cords  and  a  strengthening 
of  stakes ;  a  wiping  out  of  all  that  existed,  instead  of  a 
strengthening  and  widening  and  broadening.  To  the 
French  mind,  the  rights  of  the  people  meant  destruc- 
tion of  rulers,  a  break  with  the  past,  an  uprooting  of 
old  principles ;  a  preliminary  destruction,  before  there 
could  be  one  act  of  construction. 

The  whole  history  of  the  struggle  for  French  liberty 
and  popular  rights,  marks  an  utter  inability  to  con- 
ceive of  the  Anglo-Saxon  meaning  of  the  term.  In 
England,  for  instance,  a  constitutional  monarchy,  old 
palaces  occupied  by  the  descendants  of  historic  kings, 
ancient  cathedrals  echoing  to  the  sound  of  historic 
prayer  and  praise ;  the  Tower  of  London,  the  natural 
successor  of  Eoman  fort  and  mediaeval  donjon  keep, 


THE    CHAMPION    OF    THE    PEOPLE^S    RIGHTS  59 

and  fairly  modem  fortress ;  Westminster  Abbey,  hear- 
ing the  oath  of  Edward  VII.  to  obey  the  law  and  pre- 
serve the  rights  of  the  people,  as  it  had  seen  his  prede- 
cessors assume  the  crown  with  no  promise,  pledge,  or 
limitation ;  all  these  are  marks  and  signs  of  the  orderly 
march  and  development  of  the  rights  of  the  people, 
according  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  idea.  Among  the 
French,  on  the  contrary,  the  advance  of  liberty  or 
popular  rights  is  noted  by  a  destroyed  monarchy ;  an 
entire  break  with  the  historic  past;  a  new  regime; 
barricaded  streets ;  a  bloody  mob ;  monuments  in  ruin ; 
cathedrals  used  for  secular  purposes,  and  the  smoking 
remains  of  the  Tuileries.  To  the  French  mind,  the 
Anglo-Saxon  meaning  of  the  rights  of  the  people ;  its 
orderly  progress  and  development ;  its  regard  for  the 
rights  of  the  weak  as  well  as  the  strong ;  its  profound 
respect  for  the  rights  of  the  minority ;  its  conservative 
holding  to  the  traditions  of  the  past ;  its  earnest  con- 
serving of  the  good  and  useful ;  its  steady  evolution, 
without  break  of  continuity — to  the  French  mind,  the 
Anglo-Saxon  meaning  of  the  rights  of  the  people,  in 
this  broad  and  profound  and  conservative  and  whole- 
some sense,  was  absolutely  an  unknown  quantity. 

And  not  only  was  and  is  this  true  of  the  French 
race,  but  it  is  almost  equally  true  of  the  Teuton  and 
just  as  startlingly  true  of  the  Latin  races  in  Europe 
and  America ;  and  true  also,  to  a  most  painful  extent, 
of  the  Slavs. 

In  Spain,  every  effort  for  popular  rights  has  been 
marked  by  violence  and  destruction  and  bloodshed ;  a 
breaking  with  the  past,  a  wiping  out  of  the  historic; 


60 


INFLUENCE   OF    THE   ENGLISH   CHUECH 


revolution  instead  of  evolution.  There  has  been  no 
clear  conception  of  the  meaning  of  liberty,  and  hence 
every  promise  of  liberty  has  failed  of  realization.  So 
with  the  many  struggles  in  war-desolated  and  down- 
trodden Italy.  A  vision  of  liberty  has  floated  through 
the  dreams  of  its  great  men  and  patriots;  a  "free 
Italy''  has  been  the  cry  of  many  a  country-loving, 
hungry  heart;  and  more  than  once  the  dream  has 
seemed  on  the  verge  of  realizing  itseK  in  splendid 
fact.  But  when  almost  within  the  grasp  it  has  again 
faded  back  into  shadowy  unrealities  and  proved  but  a 
vain  delusion.  Somehow,  that  great,  splendid  truth, 
so  long  known  and  loved  by  all  of  Anglo-Saxon  de- 
scent, proved  beyond  their  grasp  and  comprehension. 
The  favored  few  might  see  and  recognize  and  love  it, 
but  to  the  great  mass  its  true  meaning  was  unknown. 
And  so,  too,  with  the  painful  history  of  Latin- 
America  :  liberty  has  been  their  dream  ever  since  the 
Anglo-Saxon  of  JSTorth  America  showed  them  the 
beauty  of  the  idea  and  the  splendid  possibilities  of 
the  fact.  They  have  seen  with  their  own  eyes,  and 
have  knowledge  from  their  own  experience,  of  what 
this  conception  of  the  rights  of  the  people  can  do. 
They  see  how  it  can  give  balance  and  patience  and 
strength  and  conservatism  and  persevering  progress 
to  a  people,  and  lift  them  to  the  very  front  rank  of 
the  nations  of  the  earth.  They  see  what  a  splendid 
history  it  can  make,  and  what  mighty  deeds  it  can 
foster.  Further  still,  it  can  inspire  them  with  a  long- 
ing which  will  not  down,  for  those  same  things.  It 
can  rouse  them  to  break  with  the  past,  and  throw  off 


61 


old  shackles,  and  break  away  from  old  limitations, 
and  to  cast  out  the  old  tyranny.  But,  somehow,  here 
all  ceases.  So  far,  the  vision  which  materializes  so 
easily  and  naturally  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  mind,  goes 
with  the  Latin-American ;  but  beyond  this  it  fails  him. 
Up  to  this  point,  it  leads  him  in  aspiration  and  effort ; 
but  when  the  destructive  work  is  done,  the  vision  fails ! 
Where  lies  the  trouble  ?  Whence  comes  the  inability  ? 
Where  is  the  limitation  ?  Is  there  something  peculiar 
in  the  mental  make-up  of  the  Anglo-Saxon;  does  he 
differ  from  all  other  races  on  earth?  Or  has  there 
been  some  formative  influence,  beginning  away  back 
in  the  infancy  of  the  race  and  working  constantly  and 
systematically  all  along ;  moulding  his  views,  stamping 
his  nature,  shaping  his  character  in  its  plastic  period, 
that  has  resulted  either  in  making  him  mentally  and 
spiritually — ^for,  after  all,  these  matters  we  are  dis- 
cussing are  as  much  spiritual  as  mental — making 
him,  I  say,  mentally  and  spiritually  unlike  all  other 
men ;  or  at  least  teaching  him  some  secret  that,  so  far, 
at  least,  has  not  been  discovered  by  any  other  man? 
Certainly,  it  seems  perfectly  evident  from  all  the 
teaching  of  history,  that  he  is  either  unlike  even  his 
nearest  kin,  or  at  least  has  learned  some  secret  or  been 
trained  into  some  mental  condition  unknown  to  them. 
Even  his  kinsman — ^the  Teuton — fails  utterly  to 
grasp  the  Anglo-Saxon  conception  of  the  rights  of  the 
people.  His  idea  of  a  "mailed  fist,"  an  autocratic 
ruler,  an  army  that  demands  and  takes  the  best  of  the 
nation  for  its  support ;  a  peasantry  who  hardly  dream 
of  having  a  right,  and  would  certainly  not  dare  assert 


62  INFLUENCE    OF    THE    ENGLISH    CHURCH 

that  right,  unless  committed  to  a  revolutionary  party 
and  to  revolutionary  measures ;  peasant  women  whose 
place  and  position  in  life  is  marked  by  making  them 
yoke-fellows  with  the  brutes — ^this,  the  Teuton  con- 
ception, is  absolutely  foreign  to  the  Anglo-Saxon's 
conception  of  the  rights  of  the  people;  and  his  point 
of  view,  when  he  speaks  of  liberty  and  the  rights  of 
the  people,  is  absolutely  incomprehensible  to  the  aver- 
age Anglo-Saxon  mind.  His  meaning — his  concep- 
tion— of  liberty  and  popular  rights  is  something 
totally  different  from  that  of  the  Anglo-Saxon. 

Hence,  if  this  Anglo-Saxon  idea  of  the  rights  of  the 
people  be  in  any  sense  hereditary,  it  must,  at  least, 
have  begun  after  the  Anglo-Saxon  parted  company 
with  his  Teuton  kinsman,  away  back  in  his  history. 

But  granting  that  there  is  this  distinction  between 
the  mental  concept  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  and  all  other 
races,  as  to  the  idea  of  the  rights  of  the  people — and 
to  the  speaker,  all  history  seems  distinctly  to  bear  out 
this  distinction — ^where  did  such  difference  of  view 
originate,  and  how  did  it  come  into  existence,  and 
upon  what  has  it  been  nourished,  that  it  should  show 
such  vitality  and  attain  to  such  vigor  ? 

Is  it  a  natural  difference — one  inherent  in  the 
races  ?  If  so,  why  ?  And  how  can  such  radical  racial 
difference  be  accounted  for  in  those  so  near  akin  and 
thrown  in  such  close  contact  in  the  course  of  their  de- 
velopment ?  There  is  nothing  in  the  mere  fact  of  being 
an  Anglo-Saxon,  the  mere  race  peculiarity,  which  can 
account  for  this  peculiarity  of  thought ;  this  peculiar 
point  of  view  as  to  the  meaning  of  an  idea. 


THE    CHAMPION    OF    THE    PEOPLE's    RIGHTS  63 

More  than  once  the  suggestion  has  been  made  that 
it  is  the  result  of  education.  In  one  sense — the  very 
broadest  in  which  the  word  "education"  can  be  used — 
this,  of  course,  is  true,  if  it  be  not  an  instinct  inherent 
in  the  race,  and  which  always  has  been  there.  In 
this  broad  sense,  all  acquired  ideas  and  concepts  are 
the  result  of  education,  for  fundamentally,  education 
is  the  drawing  out  of  all  that  is  in  a  man  or  a  race, 
and  of  all  of  which  they  are  capable. 

But  if  the  suggestion  as  to  education  refers  to  what 
is  commonly  and  technically  included  under  that 
term,  then  there  is  no  sufficient  reason  for  holding  this 
to  be  the  fact. 

Education  had  neither  its  earliest  modern  develop- 
ment nor  its  highest  modern  success,  speaking  techni- 
cally, among  the  Anglo-Saxons. 

The  Latin  probably  responded  much  more  promptly 
to  the  modern  movement  in  this  respect  than  did  the 
Anglo-Saxon;  and  the  great  educational  institutions 
of  comparatively  modem  days  had  neither  their  in- 
ception nor  early  triumphs,  in  Anglo-Saxon  lands  and 
among  Anglo-Saxon  people.  Great  thinkers,  great  in- 
tellectual lights  and  teachers,  had  graced  and  adorned 
other  lands  and  peoples  before  the  Anglo-Saxon  began 
to  share  in  the  beauty  and  glory  of  the  forward  move- 
ments. 

If,  away  back  in  the  days  when  the  Anglo-Saxon 
was  first  emerging  from  almost  barbarism  into  the 
beginnings  of  his  own  racial  civilization,  any  edu- 
cated, intelligent  citizen  of  the  world  had  been  asked 
to  name  the  men  educationally   and   intellectually 


64  INTLUENCE   OF    THE   ENGLISH   CHUECH 

capable  of  leading  men  and  shaping  thought  and  bet- 
tering the  world,  he  would  hardly  have  turned  to  the 
Anglo-Saxon  race  to  find  one  single  name  for  his  list. 
!N"aj,  the  citizen  of  England  himself,  at  that  time, 
would  hardly  have  considered  the  Anglo-Saxon  in  the 
count ;  and  if  required  to  name  an  inhabitant  of  Eng- 
land at  all,  he  would  have  chosen  some  man — priest, 
prelate,  or  noble — of  French,  Latin,  or  Teuton  blood 
and  lineage,  so  little  was  the  Anglo-Saxon  then  con- 
sidered, in  matters  of  intellectual  development.  Even 
our  children  who  are  old-fashioned  enough  to  read 
"Ivanhoe"  and  kindred  romances,  recognize  the  truth 
of  this. 

So,  I  say,  education — in  the  ordinary  and  technical 
sense  of  the  word — cannot  account  for  this  seeming 
race-peculiarity.  There  must  be  some  influence 
closely  touching  the  life  of  the  Anglo-Saxon ;  always 
accompanying  and  bearing  upon  his  development; 
touching  him  in  the  closest  intimacies  of  life  and 
thought;  influencing  him  unconsciously  and  unceas- 
ingly every  year  and  day  of  his  history ;  as  unceasing 
as  the  tides  and  as  all-pervading  as  the  air  he  breathes, 
and  almost  as  powerful  as  the  laws  of  life ;  that  has 
been  shaping  and  moulding  his  mental  and  spiritual 
nature  for  centuries,  that  has  thus  given  him  a  differ- 
ent point  of  view  from  all  other  races  with  regard  to 
this  idea.  And  then,  too,  this  influence  must  of  neces- 
sity have  been  one  that  was  peculiar  to  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  ;  shared  by  no  other  race.  Else  how  would  it 
have  given  him  this  peculiar  concept  ?  Is  there  any 
influence  thus  peculiar  to  the  Anglo-Saxon ;  something 


that  has  belonged  to  Ms  history  alone,  and  in  a  sense 
which  has  been  shared  by  no  other  race?  I  think 
there  is.  And  I  think  that  this  influence  is  so  plain 
and  self-evident  that  it  can  be  read  on  every  page  of 
his  history,  and  seen  in  all  his  mental  structure,  and 
found  in  evidence  in  all  the  splendid  world's  work 
that  he  has  done.  It  is  this  silent,  powerful,  splendid 
influence  that  has  made  the  Anglo-Saxon  the  world- 
pioneer,  the  world-missionary,  the  world-subduer,  the 
world-enlightener,  the  man  who  is  bringing  freedom 
and  the  sense  of  human  brotherhood  to  the  whole 
world ;  the  man  who  can  bring  the  only  freedom  worth 
having  and  that  will  endure;  the  freedom  based  on 
respect  for  fellow-man  as  the  child  of  the  same  God, 
and  as  a  brother  in  the  best  and  noblest  possible  sense. 

And  this  influence,  I  think,  is  the  Anglican  Church. 

The  Church  of  England,  just  as  far  as  we  can  trace 
its  course,  stands  in  a  relation  to  the  people  of  Eng- 
land peculiar  to  itself ;  entirely  different  in  its  position 
and  relation  from  that  of  any  other  nation. 

Erom  the  very  first,  it  seemed  to  be  a  part  of  the 
people ;  as  essential  a  part  of  their  lives  as  it  is  possi- 
ble to  conceive.  When  and  how  it  came  to  be,  no  man 
knows  to  this  day.  Whence  came  the  hierarchy,  fol- 
lowing on  the  mission  of  Augustine,  we  all  know.  But 
whence  came  that  church  that  the  earliest  writers 
found  there  in  purity  and  vigor,  no  man  can  tell. 
There  it  was  in  the  earliest  history  of  the  race ;  there 
it  is,  and  there  it  always  has  been ;  the  peculiar  pos- 
session of  the  people ;  loved  and  sustained  by  the  peo- 
ple; teaching  and  moulding  and  leading  the  people; 


66 


INFLUEJS^CE    OF    THE    ENGLISH    CHURCH 


loyally  believed  in  by  the  people;  the  most  splendid 
instance  of  a  people's  church  ever  known  in  the  history 
of  the  world.  More  than  once,  its  open  and  avowed 
enemies — from  both  extremes — ^have  been  in  power 
and  have  determined  to  wipe  it  out  of  existence,  and 
have  tried  their  very  utmost  to  carry  their  purpose 
into  effect ;  but  always  the  people — whose  friend  and 
champion  she  has  always  been — friend  and  champion 
against  either  wild  and  reckless  democracy,  or  tyran- 
nous monarchy,  or  narrow  aristocracy — have  asserted 
their  love  for  and  loyalty  to  her,  and  restored  her  to 
her  proud  position  of  spiritual  teacher  and  leader  of 
the  nation. 

The  reason  for  this  mighty  hold  on  the  popular 
heart  is  not  far  to  seek.  To  say  that  the  Anglican 
Church  may  have  been  guilty  of  mistakes  or  errors, 
is  simply  to  say  that  those  who  have  done  her  work 
have  been  human — making  no  claim  to  even  a  hazy, 
indefinable  "Ex  Cathedra"  infallibility,  whatever 
that  may  be.  But  for  any  or  all  of  these  things,  the 
relation  of  the  Anglican  Church  to  the  Anglo-Saxon 
race  has  been  one  peculiar  to  itself ;  differing  entirely 
from  the  relation  between  any  other  race  or  nation 
and  church. 

Elsewhere — for  instance,  in  Italy,  France,  Spain, 
or  Germany  in  the  not  so  very  distant  past — ^the 
Church  belonged  essentially  to  a  class — ^king,  prince, 
bishop,  cardinal,  abbot,  all  belonged  by  blood  and 
lineage  to  the  same  race  or  family.  One  brother  ruled 
in  the  halls  of  state ;  one  bore  the  insignia  of  command 
on  the  field  of  battle ;  one  wore  the  red  or  purple  of  the 


Church's  highest  dignity,  nay,  might  aspire  to  wear 
the  triple  crown  itself,  and,  if  he  were  sufficiently 
powerful  and  prideful  and  masterful,  he  might  even 
succeed  to  the  splendid  humility  of  sitting  in  the  seat 
of  the  lowly  fisherman  of  Galilee. 

The  prince  of  the  church  boasted  as  long  a  pedigree 
and  as  high  a  lineage  and  as  noble  an  ancestry  as  the 
prince  of  the  state;  and  the  leader  of  the  church's 
hosts  was  of  the  same  stock  and  held  the  same  views 
and  shared  the  same  purposes  as  he  who  led  the  hosts 
of  the  state.  The  Church  militant  was  indeed  a  mili- 
tant church  in  a  very  natural  and  real  way,  and  the 
term  needed  no  explaining  under  those  circumstances 
— unless  the  spirit  moved  some  lowly  churchman  to 
explain  that  militant  did  not  mean  just  what  the 
church's  "Prince-Bishops"  seemed  to  make  it  mean. 

As  a  result  of  these  conditions,  it  was  simply  im- 
possible that  the  church  should  have  any  great  hold 
on  the  common  people.  Its  leaders  belonged  to  the 
classes  who  neither  knew  of  nor  cared  for  the  common 
people.  They  were  of  noble  blood  themselves,  and 
naturally  their  sympathies  and  views  and  feelings 
went  with  their  own  class  and  kin.  Hence,  when  there 
was  revolution  or  uprising  or  effort  for  popular  free- 
dom, church  and  rulers  were  joined  together.  In  the 
Gallic  mind,  bishop  and  Bourbon,  religion  and  mon- 
archy, were  bound  together ;  and  if  one  must  perish, 
the  other  must  perish  with  it. 

So,  too — in  the  mind  of  the  Italian  lover  of  liberty 
and  seeker  of  the  rights  of  the  people — the  castle  of 
Saint  Angelo  might  mean  a  bulwark  of  the  church  and 


68 


INFLUENCE   OF    THE   ENGLISH   CHUECH 


a  metaphorical  tower  of  tlie  spiritual  Sion ;  but  it  also 
meant  a  very  material  obstruction  to  a  united  and  free 
Italy,  and  an  outward  and  visible  sign  of  the  alliance 
between  spiritual  and  material  things — ^the  joining 
together,  in  the  bonds  of  sympathy,  of  the  church  and 
the  secular  opponents  of  the  rights  of  the  people. 

In  England,  the  case  was  absolutely  and  entirely 
different.  For  a  while,  after  the  ISTorman  Conquest, 
this  Continental  idea  was  imported  into  England,  but 
it  quickly  passed  away.  The  old  spirit  of  the  land 
passed  back  into  the  Church  again,  and  she  stood,  as 
always,  aligned  and  sympathizing  with  the  people. 
Her  leaders  were  rarely  men  of  the  aristocracy,  the 
kin  of  princes  and  kings,  the  poor  relations  of  the 
great  nobles.  Strong  leaders  she  had ;  men  who  feared 
neither  king  nor  commonalty ;  neither  papacy  nor  bar- 
onage; but  oftener  than  otherwise  they  were  men 
whose  name  and  fame  were  unknown  to  college  of 
heraldry  or  students  of  pedigree.  They  were  men  of 
the  people,  with  good,  clean  Anglo-Saxon  blood,  hard 
Anglo-Saxon  sense,  and  dauntless  Anglo-Saxon  cour- 
age; filled  with  powerful  convictions  and  ready  to 
stand  by  those  convictions  to  the  end,  even  though 
a  coward  king  should  tempt  his  time-serving  courtiers 
to  bloody  deeds  for  his  craven  relief. 

The  great  settlements  of  these  churchmen  became 
the  centres  of  social  life  and  of  trade  and  of  intelli- 
gence for  the  common  people.  Here,  the  Anglo-Saxon, 
scorned  by  N^orman  noble  and  foreign  courtier,  found 
the  strong  rallying  point,  around  which,  sooner  or 
later,  all  his  best  interests  centred.    Here,  he  found 


69 

a  market  for  what  he  had  to  sell,  and  here  he  received 
what  he  could  get  from  neither  king  nor  noble — an 
honest  price  for  what  he  had  to  barter.  Here,  he 
found  occupation,  and  pay  for  his  work.  Here,  he 
could  find  help  for  his  distressed,  medical  treatment 
and  care  for  his  sick,  and  succor  in  his  worst  needs. 
From  these  places  came  what  teaching  and  instruction 
he  ever  received;  and  naturally,  to  these  places  he 
turned,  whenever  he  needed  aid  or  assistance  of  any 
kind.  In  connection  with  these  settlements  he  came 
in  contact  with  higher  thought  and  nobler  types  and 
forms  of  life  than  he  ever  had  known  before.  They 
were  the  sources  from  whence  he  derived  all  his  higher 
and  better  aspirations,  and  ideals  of  a  nobler  form 
of  existence.  Here  he  saw  what  could  be  made  of  life, 
and  how  it  could  be  bettered,  and  in  what  way  im- 
provement could  come. 

Royalty  and  nobility  and  all  the  courtier  life  were 
far  removed  from  him,  not  only  by  the  bar  of  means 
or  education  and  such  material  matters,  but  by  the 
far  stronger  bar  of  race  difference  and  race  antipathy. 
In  the  court  and  in  the  camp  he  found  the  pride  and 
insolence  and  contempt  and  tyranny  of  E'orman- 
I'rench ;  an  alien  race  that  knew  nothing  of  him  and 
cared  nothing  for  him,  except  what  he  was  worth  as  a 
beast  of  burden ;  and  thought  nothing  of  him  but  in- 
solent contempt. 

But  in  very  many  of  the  great  religious  settlements 
all  was  different.  Here,  he  often  found  men  of  his 
own  blood  and  race ;  men  akin  to  him  not  only  by  the 
ties  of  a  common  descent,  but  by  the  much  stronger 


70 


INFLUENCE    OF    THE    ENGLISH    CHURCH 


ties  of  a  common  inheritance,  a  common  experience, 
common  hardships  and  troubles,  a  common  sympathy 
in  feeling  against  a  common  oppressor.  Hence,  in 
these  settlements,  the  Anglo-Saxon,  first  looking  up 
toward  the  light  of  better  things,  found  first  his  sym- 
pathizers, and  then  his  helpers,  and  finally  his  leaders. 
These  men  knew  who  he  was,  and  what  his  capabilities 
were,  and  what  were  his  aspirations ;  and  they  were 
ready  with  their  aid  and  guidance. 

Hence,  because  of  the  historic  and  racial  differ- 
ences, when  the  great  struggle  for  liberty  came,  the 
Gaul  looked  on  church  and  nobility  and  monarchy  as 
his  common  enemies ;  and  dazed  and  confused  and 
maddened  by  his  age-long  sufferings,  he  struck  indis- 
criminately at  them  all,  and  struck  to  kill.  With  king 
and  crown  went  not  only  prince  and  nobleman,  but 
cardinal  and  bishop  and  priest,  and  all  the  outward 
and  visible  sign  of  church  power.  'Not  only  bishop 
and  cardinal,  but  abbot  and  cure,  had  too  often  been 
associated  in  his  mind  with  those  who  made  common 
cause  against  him,  for  him  to  make  any  distinctions 
between  them.  So  far  as  he  knew,  the  church  had 
collected  its  tithes  as  mercilessly  and  by  as  ruthless 
means  as  had  king  or  courtier  collected  their  taxes 
and  rents.  It  had  never  taken  his  side,  or  taught  him 
and  his  children,  or  lightened  his  burden,  or  bright- 
ened his  path  in  life.  So  he  not  only  owed  it  no  debt 
of  gratitude,  but  he  had  no  slightest  kindly  feeling 
for  it.  Not  once,  in  all  his  long  history,  had  he  or  his 
forebears  ever  known  it  to  stand  against  royal  aggres- 


71 


sion  or  priestly  oppression,  for  him  and  his  sacred 
rights. 

But  with  the  Anglo-Saxon  the  case  was  entirely 
different.  The  Church,  for  a  time,  might  be  allied 
with  king  against  baronage  and  people,  but  this  alli- 
ance was  always  temporary;  and  the  time  would 
equally  come  when  it  was  allied  with  baronage  and 
common  people  against  the  king.  And  yet  again,  it 
would  stand  for  the  rights  of  the  people,  as  against 
both  king  and  baronage.  In  a  word,  it  belonged  to  no 
class  or  condition,  but  was  an  independent  factor  in 
the  nation;  and  though  often  contaminated  by  evil 
companionships,  and  sometimes  controlled  by  evil 
men,  oftenest  of  all  stood  for  right  and  truth  and 
righteousness ;  the  people's  friend  and  counsellor ;  the 
conserver  of  the  rights  of  all,  as  against  the  claims  of 
any  class  or  party. 

Because  of  this  historic  attitude  of  the  Church, 
because  she  has  been  the  Church  of  the  race,  the 
Anglo-Saxon,  in  all  his  upheavals  and  efforts  for  free- 
dom and  progress,  has  respected  and  loved  and  con- 
served that  Church.  To-day  she  is  one  of  the  strong, 
historic  links  which  binds  him  to  his  mighty  past; 
and  to-day,  no  matter  from  what  land  the  world- 
wanderer  hails,  and  by  what  sectarian  name  he  calls 
himself,  he  cannot  stand  unmoved  beneath  the  roof  of 
ancient  abbey  or  massive  cathedral  or  historic  church ; 
for  though  he  may  claim  no  present  part  in  her,  he 
knows  that  her  glorious  past  belongs  equally  to  him, 
as  to  every  man  in  whose  veins  flows  Anglo-Saxon 


72 


INFLUENCE    OF    THE    ENGLISH    CHUECH 


blood.  She  is  his  mother-church  in  a  sense  unknown 
to  the  man  of  any  other  race.  There  may  have  been 
periods  in  her  history  when  she  seemed  to  lose  her 
high  aim,  and  to  become,  temporarily,  a  party  to  his 
oppression ;  but  he  remembers  the  bishops  haled  to  the 
Tower  for  withstanding  a  reckless  tyrant ;  bishops  and 
mighty  leaders  testifying  at  the  stake  for  the  religious 
and  civil  rights  of  the  nation;  noble  and  godly  men 
gtricken  down  for  fearlessly  defying  king  and  nobil- 
ity ;  nay,  he  remembers  most  of  all,  and  most  glorious 
of  all,  that  Magna  Charta  itself  was  drawn  by  the 
hand  of  the  Church's  chosen  leader,  and  that  the  most 
splendid  heritage  of  all  the  race  was  the  work  of  a 
churchman  who  dared  to  stand  with  the  people  and 
for  the  people,  when  none  else  but  churchmen  con- 
sidered the  people  worth  standing  with  or  for. 

This  Magna  Charta,  then,  and  this  man  Stephen 
Langton,  who  drew  it,  and  whose  name  stands  first 
on  this  splendid  roll  of  signers,  are  fair  examples  of 
all  that  your  speaker  has  been  saying,  and  fair  illus- 
trations of  the  truths  he  has  been  trying  to  make  clear. 
How  comes  it  that  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  alone,  of  all 
the  races  of  the  world,  has  a  Magna  Charta,  or  any- 
thing answering  to  that  great  monument  of  historic 
popular  rights?  How  comes  it  that  away  back  in 
their  past,  this  race  alone  conceived  this  splendid  in- 
strument ;  so  great  that  at  thirty-eight  separate  times 
since,  it  has  been  re-enacted  as  the  basis  of  all  consti- 
tutional Anglo-Saxon  rights  ? 

Where  lay  the  point,  and  what  was  the  fact  in  the 
history  of  this  race  that  gave  them  this  great  conserver 


73 


of  popular  rights,  unknown  to  any  other  race,  and 
which  has  been  the  pattern  from  which  all  other  races 
have  more  or  less  copied  ? 

The  simple  difference  was  that  the  Anglo-Saxon 
race  had  as  its  guardian  and  guide  and  helper,  the 
great  Anglican  Church;  strong  enough  to  be  fearless 
of  king  and  baronage;  wise  enough  to  see  that  only 
when  all  rights  were  respected  would  any  rights  ulti- 
mately be  preserved;  faithful  enough  to  hold  to  the 
fundamentals  of  her  faith  through  all  vicissitudes, 
and  brave  enough,  in  time  of  stress,  to  stand  four- 
square for  God  and  fellow-man.  This  Church,  stand- 
ing always  between  tyranny  and  anarchy,  extreme 
power  and  extreme  laxity,  between  a  blind  democracy 
and  a  tyrannous  aristocracy,  has  been  the  balance- 
wheel  of  the  race  in  its  development;  the  motive 
power,  when  progress  was  needed;  the  brake,  when 
there  was  need  for  conservatism.  Had  the  struggle, 
in  the  thirteenth  century,  been  merely  between  king 
and  baronage,  it  would  simply  have  added  one  more 
to  the  long  list  of  such  bloody  and  useless  and  result- 
less  and  futile  struggles  that  stain  and  disfigure  the 
pages  of  history.  A  triumph  for  the  king  would  have 
meant  stronger  shackles  and  a  sterner  tyranny,  and  a 
longer  lease  for  unlimited  monarchy.  But  under  the 
same  circumstances,  the  triumph  of  the  barons  would 
have  meant  an  equally  useless  and  purposeless  victory, 
so  far  as  the  future  of  the  race  was  concerned.  It 
would  simply  have  been  a  change  in  the  name  and 
personnel  of  the  tyrant  in  either  case,  so  far  as  the 
people  were  concerned.     Had  this  struggle  for  the 


74  INFLUENCE   OF    THE   ENGLISH   CHURCH 

mastery  again  had  no  parties  to  it,  save  aristocracy 
on  the  one  hand  and  the  people  on  the  other,  it  would 
simply  have  been  a  battle  for  absolute  mastery  on  the 
one  side  or  the  other,  a  precursor  of  the  French  Revo- 
lution— one  party  to  triumph;  the  other  to  be  de- 
stroyed. 

But  the  existence  in  this  century-long  struggle  of 
a  factor  unknown  in  other  countries  and  among  other 
nations  and  races,  was  the  very  thing  which  made 
possible  the  outcome  of  the  struggle.  The  presence 
of  the  English  Church,  in  the  persons  of  her  archbish- 
ops and  her  leaders,  was  what  really  made  Runny- 
mede  classic  ground,  and  constituted  it  the  birthplace 
and  cradle  of  all  modem  rights  of  the  people. 

The  great  central  figure  of  Runnymede  is  not  the 
mighty  monarch  of  a  great  nation,  surrounded  by  all 
the  panoply  of  royalty ;  nor  yet  the  stem  and  sturdy 
baronage  in  all  the  pomp  and  circumstance  of  war; 
but  the  fearless  churchman,  strong  in  his  knowledge 
and  deep-rooted  in  his  loyalty  to  God  and  fellow-man ; 
the  representative  of  that  splendid  Church  whose 
proud  mission  it  was  to  mete  out  even-handed  justice 
to  high  and  low,  rich  and  poor,  alike ;  to  demand  equal 
homage  from  the  king  on  his  throne,  the  baron  in  his 
moated  castle,  and  the  peasant  following  his  plough  or 
tending  his  flocks. 

This  was,  in  the  last  analysis,  the  determining  fac- 
tor in  this  thirteenth-century  struggle;  this  the  ele- 
ment that  differentiated  it  from  all  other  struggles  in 
history,  and  made  it  progressive,  constructive,  and 
evolutionary,  instead  of  reactionary,  destructive,  and 


THE    CHAMPION    OF   THE   PEOPLE's    EIGHTS  75 

revolutionary.  It  was  the  presence  of  this  factor,  this 
splendid  conserver  of  the  old,  as  well  as  promoter  of 
the  new,  that  caused  this  struggle  to  result  in  Magna 
Charta  and  the  dawning  of  the  day  when  the  rights 
of  the  people  was  to  be  one  of  the  most  sacred  of  all 
things  known  to  the  great  Anglo-Saxon  race.  It  was 
the  presence  of  this  factor  which  made  Magna  Charta 
a  possible  conception,  and  then  gave  that  noble  con- 
ception a  realization  in  fact. 

The  Anglo-Saxon  thirteenth-century  struggle  dif- 
fered from  all  other  struggles  for  liberty  in  that  it  was 
guided,  as  the  race  always  has  been  guided,  by  a  pro- 
found influence,  impartial,  fearless,  and  fit  by  its  nat- 
ure and  history  to  mediate  between  all  classes,  and 
see  that  each  not  only  received  justice  itself,  but  ren- 
dered like  justice  to  others. 

This  splendid  influence  was  and  is  the  Anglican 
Church,  which,  from  its  nature,  its  history,  and  its 
faith,  was  and  is  and  always  must  be,  not  the  repre- 
sentative of  a  class,  but  the  guardian  and  champion 
of  the  rights  of  all. 


LECTURE   IV 

€f)e  principle  of  l^ational  €f^mtf^tfi 


LECTURE  IV 

€&e  principle  of  l^ational  Cfturtfteief 

KvKXdxrare  ^ca)v  xal  irepiXd^eTe  avrrjv,  Birjyija-aa-de 
ip  T0t9  irvfjyoL^  avTfj<;*  Oiade  Ta<;  KaphCa^  vficjv  €l<s  rrjv 
BvvafjLCv  auT^9,  Koi  KarahieKeaSe  Ta<;  ^dpecf;  dvT7J<i, 

"  Walk  about  Sion,  and  go  round  about  her :  and  tell  the  towers 
thereof.  Mark  well  her  bulwarks,  set  up  her  houses." — Psalm 
xlviii.  11. 

IT  is  never  quite  easy  for  communities  or  individ- 
uals to  be  judges  in  their  own  cause;  and  the 
subject  which  we  are  now  called  upon  to  con- 
sider has  a  very  deep  interest  for  all  of  our  race. 
Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  we  can  hope  but  little  from 
those  studies  which  are  begun  in  a  spirit  of  indiffer- 
ence, and  we  may  hope  that  we  are  willing  to  receive 
the  truth  concerning  those  things  in  which  we  are 
most  deeply  interested. 

To  those  who  love  the  land  they  live  in,  the  people 
to  whom  they  belong — ^who  are  interested  in  the  ex- 
tension of  the  Kingdom  of  God — there  can  be  few 
subjects  of  deeper  and  more  abiding  interest  than  the 
theme  which  has  been  brought  before  our  notice  in  the 
series  of  lectures  on  the  "Influence  of  the  English 
Church  on  Anglo-Saxon  Civilization."  Many  of  the 
thoughts  presented  to  you,  under  one  or  other  of  the 
topics  brought  forward,  will  doubtless  be  found  ap- 
plicable to  some  of  the  other  subjects ;  but  perhaps  we 

79 


80  INFLUEI^CE    OF    THE    ENGLISH    CHURCH 

may  find  this  no  disadvantage,  since  we  may  gain 
something  from  the  presentation  of  the  same  thoughts 
under  different  aspects. 

We  have  this  evening  to  consider  a  subject  which 
can  hardly  be  thought  inferior  in  interest  and  impor- 
tance to  any  other  in  this  series — the  Principle  of 
National  Churches;  and  it  may  be  well  for  us  to  con- 
sider at  once  what  we  mean  by  this  expression. 

And  here  we  are  at  once  confronted  by  an  alterna- 
tive, and  required  to  take  a  side.  On  the  one  hand, 
we  have  national  churches  existing  and  claiming  a 
right  to  exist  with  at  least  a  certain  degree  of  inde- 
pendence ;  and  on  the  other,  we  are  confronted  by  a 
system  which  claims  to  be  universal  and  denies  every 
kind  or  degree  of  independence  to  local  and  national 
churches. 

To  some  the  solution  of  this  problem  seems  very 
simple.  The  Church  of  Christ  is  one,  they  tell  us, 
and  in  this  fact  there  should  be  an  end  to  the  contro- 
versy. Do  we  not  profess  our  belief  in  One  Holy 
Catholic  and  Apostolic  Church  ?  Did  not  our  Blessed 
Lord  pray  that  His  people  might  be  one,  as  He  and  the 
Father  are  one  ?  How,  then,  can  it  be  lawful  to  break 
up  the  unity  of  the  Church  by  the  establishment  of 
communions  separated  from  that  unity  ?  How  easily 
are  such  questions  asked!  how  obvious  seems  the  an- 
swer to  them!  Alas!  there  are  few  fallacies  so  far 
removed  from  the  truth  as  those  which  put  on  the  ap- 
pearance of  obvious  and  unquestionable  truths. 

But  surely  the  Scriptures  may  settle  such  a  question 
without  any  reasonable  doubt  being  left.     Have  you 


THE    PRINCIPLE    OF    NATIONAL    CHURCHES  81 

ever  thought  how  many  questions  the  Scripture  seems 
to  leave  unsettled — giving  us  the  principles  on  which 
all  settlements  must  be  made,  but  seldom  giving  us 
the  rules  which  we  are  required  to  deduce  from  those 
principles  ?  Have  we  here  forgotten  the  teaching  of 
our  great  Hooker? 

Well,  but  surely  we  hold  that  there  is  one  Catholic 
Church,  and  that  there  must  be  a  certain  unity  between 
all  the  portions  of  the  Church  which  claim  to  belong 
to  the  one  Church.  Undoubtedly  there  are  Christian 
and  Catholic  principles  uniting  all  parts  of  the  Cath- 
olic Church,  just  as  there  is  a  certain  Jus  Gentium 
uniting  all  civilized  countries  and  nationalities.  But 
just  as  this  law  of  nations  sets  forth  the  common  prin- 
ciples of  human  civilization,  but  does  not  interfere 
with  the  independence  or  special  legislation  of  par- 
ticular countries,  so  there  is  a  common  faith  in  which 
the  separate  national  churches  find  their  unity,  whilst 
their  right  of  independence  and  local  legislation  is  in 
no  way  interfered  with.  So  it  was  from  the  begin- 
ning, and  so  it  should  remain  under  the  actual  cir- 
cumstances of  the  Church. 

Let  us  look  back  for  a  moment  to  the  original  con- 
stitution of  the  Church  under  the  government  of  the 
Apostles  of  Christ,  and  ask  whether  we  have  departed 
from  the  example  there  given ;  whether  there  is  any- 
thing in  the  essential  character  of  a  national  Church 
which  differs  from  the  first  types,  or  from  the  consti- 
tution of  the  various  individual  churches  in  the  age 
nearest  to  that  of  the  Apostles. 

There  can  be  but  one  answer    to    this    question. 


82  INFLUENCE   OF    THE   ENGLISH   CHUECH 

There  was  no  central  authority  claiming  supremacy 
over  the  other  churches ;  there  is  no  hint  of  any  Chris- 
tian   Communion    arrogating    to    itself   a    right    to 
guide  or  control  another.     A  church  might  refuse  to 
admit  another  church  to  its  Communion  for  reasons 
which  prevailed  with  itself,  but  it  did  not  dictate  to 
the  other  church.     Take  the  first  difiiculty  that  arose 
in  the  Church  with  regard  to  the  conditions  to  be 
imposed  upon  the  Gentiles.     We  know  how  this  was 
dealt  with  at  the  first  Council  of  the  Church,  held  in 
Jerusalem,  not  long  after  the  reception  of  the  Gentiles 
into  the  Church.    At  this  council  Apostles  were  pres- 
ent and  took  part  in  the  debates.    James,  the  Bishop 
of  Jerusalem,  apparently  not  an  Apostle,  but  a  brother 
of  the  Lord  Jesus,  presided.     We  know  the  conclu- 
sions at  which  they  arrived — conclusions  adopted  with 
great  and  tender  regard  for  those  on  whose  behalf  they 
were  legislating.     Here  is  the  decision  as  announced 
by  the  presiding  bishop:     "It  seemed  good    to  the 
Holy  Ghost,  and  to  us,  to  lay  upon  you  no  greater 
burden  than  these  necessary  things :  ^that  ye  abstain 
from  things  sacrificed  to  idols,  and  from  blood,  and 
from  things  strangled,  and  from  fornication.'  "    'Now 
these  ordinances  were  partly  of  the  nature  of  moral  ob- 
ligations, partly  ritual  ordinances ;  and  although  they 
were  promulgated  by  apostolic  authority,  they  were 
so  far  from  being  imposed  upon  the  whole  Church 
that  Saint  Paul,  soon  afterward,  could  speak  of  some 
of  them  as  being  binding  only  under  certain  circum- 
stances, and  more  especially  for  the  avoiding  of  any- 
thing that  might  wound  the  conscience  of  a  weak 


THE    PEINCIPLE    OF    NATIONAL    CHURCHES  83 

brother.  This  first  Christian  Council  at  Jerusalem 
has  often  been  taken  as  the  type  of  all  that  were  to 
follow;  and  although  we  may  not  perhaps  lay  down 
any  such  principle  as  universal,  yet  the  example  then 
given  was  largely  followed. 

Let  us  turn  our  attention  for  a  moment  to  the  (Ecu- 
menical Councils,  which  were  regarded  as  representing 
the  whole  Church.  Even  in  the  Church  of  Rome,  un- 
til the  time  of  the  Vatican  Council,  it  was  a  lawful 
opinion  to  hold  either  of  two  views  of  the  relation  of 
the  Bishop  of  Rome  to  such  a  Council.  Up  to  that 
time  a  doctrine  was  not  held  to  be  binding  and  en- 
forceable until,  after  being  promulgated  by  the  Coun- 
cil, it  was  received  by  the  whole  Church.  Indeed,  it 
was  the  consent  of  the  Church  that  made  the  Council 
to  he  regarded  as  oecumenical,  and  not  its  being  sum- 
moned by  emperor  or  pope,  or  by  its  having  among 
its  members  bishops  from  all  parts  of  the  Christian 
Church. 

A  very  slight  reference  to  the  early  history  of  the 
Councils  will  make  this  point  clear.  The  first  Coun- 
cil of  Constantinople,  held  in  381,  has  been  received 
by  East  and  West  as  oecumenical.  On  what  grounds  ? 
!N'ot  because  it  was  convoked  with  this  view,  nor  be- 
cause of  its  numerical  importance;  but  because  its 
decrees  were  accepted  by  the  whole  Church.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  second  Council  of  Ephesus  (a.d.  449) 
was  convoked  by  the  Emperors  Theodosius  II.  and 
Valentinian  III.  as  an  CEcumenical  Council ;  but  its 
proceedings  were  so  violent  and  shameful  that  the 
Church  rejected  it  from  a  place  among  its  synods, 


84  INFLUENCE    OF    THE    ENGLISH    CHURCH 

and  branded  it  with  the  name  of  Latrocinium — the 
Robber  Council.  The  first  Council  of  Constantinople 
is  accepted  as  oecumenical  because  it  was  received  by 
the  Church ;  the  second  of  Ephesus  is  refused  that  rank 
because  the  Church  rejected  it. 

And  perhaps  we  may  see  here  something  analogous 
to  what  is  still  going  on  in  the  Church.  We  no  longer 
hope  for  an  (Ecumenical.  There  has  been  none  re- 
garded as  such  since  the  second  of  Nicaea  (a.d.  787). 
But  the  same  kind  of  process  goes  on.  The  conscience 
and  the  experience  of  the  Church,  illuminated  and 
guided  by  the  Divine  Spirit,  still  tries  the  opinions 
which  claim  for  themselves  the  acceptance  of  the 
Christian  community ;  and  silently  the  great  articles 
of  the  Church  are  established  in  the  convictions  of 
men,  and  the  errors  and  superstitions  which  have  long 
struggled  for  existence  fall  away.  The  test  of  truth 
is  still  and  always  will  be  the  acceptance  of  the 
Church.  Here  is  the  truth  of  the  maxim  to  which  Dr. 
Newman  paid  such  regard:  "Securus  judicat  orbis 
terrarum'^ — the  universal  judgment  is  safe. 

To  return  to  the  relations  between  the  various  dio- 
ceses and  national  churches.  These  admonished  one 
another,  and  sometimes  refused  communion  to  one 
another,  but  not  because  of  any  supposed  authority 
that  the  one  had  over  the  other,  but  because  the  other 
was  supposed  to  hold  false  doctrine  or  to  use  un- 
lawful rites.  Of  the  one  case  the  Arian  controversy 
will  aiford  many  illustrations.  Of  the  other  we  have 
an  example  in  the  case  of  the  bishops  of  the  East, 
whom  Bishop  Victor  of  Home  endeavored  to  have  ex- 


THE    PRINCIPLE    OF    NATIONAL    CHURCHES  85 

communicated,  because  they  celebrated  the  Feast  of 
Easter  at  a  different  time  from  the  Church  of  Eome, 
following,  as  they  alleged,  the  tradition  of  Saint 
John.  The  fact  that  Saint  Irenseus  rebuked  the 
Roman  bishop  for  his  intolerance  sufficiently  shows 
that  no  kind  of  authority  was  conceded  to  the  latter. 

But  it  is  time  to  pass  from  these  early  examples  to 
the  history  of  our  own  Church,  and  consider  its  claim 
to  a  national  character  and  a  national  independence. 

'No  one  who  has  the  most  superficial  acquaintance 
with  the  history  of  the  Middle  Ages  can  doubt  or  for- 
get the  immense  debt  which  the  English  people  and 
the  English  Church  owe  to  the  See  of  Rome.  It  is 
enough  to  mention  the  names  of  Augustine  and  Theo- 
dore, to  go  no  further.  But  it  would  be  equally  ab- 
surd and  unhistorical  to  imagine  or  to  concede  that 
the  English  Church  of  the  first  ages  was  subject  to  the 
Roman  See. 

There  was  in  the  state  of  the  Middle  Ages  much  to 
foster  such  an  idea.  The  kingdoms  and  states  of  Eu- 
rope had  not  yet  taken  form  and  shape.  Moreover, 
the  mind  of  Europe,  and  the  best  mind  of  Europe, 
was  possessed  by  the  great  idea  of  one  State  and  one 
Church ;  one  State  embracing  the  political  world,  over 
which  the  Emperor  should  be  supreme,  and  one  Church 
embracing  the  spiritual  world,  over  which  the  Pope 
should  be  supreme.  It  was  a  magnificent  idea,  and 
possessed  the  heart  and  the  imagination  of  men  like 
Dante.  There  were  differences  of  opinion  with  regard 
to  the  relations  of  the  two  heads,  some  holding  that 
the  Pope  was  supreme,  and  others  that  the  Emperor 


86 


II^LUENCE   OF    THE   ENGLISH   CHURCH 


was,  and  others  that  they  held  a  kind  of  co-ordinate 
jurisdiction  under  Christ  as  the  Lord  of  both. 

But  the  moment  it  was  attempted  to  give  life  and 
energy  to  the  conception,  it  began  to  grow  evident 
that  it  could  not  be  worked.  And  it  was  precisely  at 
the  moment  that  the  idea  was  most  dominant  that  its 
weakness  became  most  manifest  and  its  downfall  was 
preparing.  Let  us  note  for  a  moment  the  conflict  as 
seen  in  the  English  State  and  Church. 

The  case  of  Wilfrid  of  York  in  the  seventh  century 
is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  and  most  instructive 
as  proving  the  independence  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
Church.  The  Roman  side  in  that  controversy  was 
one  of  the  strongest.  Wilfrid  was  a  man  of  the  highest 
excellence.  His  contention,  that  he  ought  to  have 
been  consulted  before  his  diocese  was  divided,  was  not 
unreasonable ;  and  when  he  appealed  to  Rome  to  see 
him  righted,  he  might  have  pleaded  the  dignity  of  the 
Apostolic  See  and  the  greatness  of  the  missionary 
work  which  it  had  accomplished  in  England.  But 
what  was  the  result  of  his  appeal  ?  A  Roman  Synod, 
presided  over  by  the  Pope,  restored  Wilfrid  to  his 
See;  and,  armed  with  this  document,  he  presented 
himself  before  the  King  of  !N"orthumbria.  With 
what  result?  Did  this  English  kingdom  or  Church 
bow  to  the  decisions  of  the  Sovereign  Pontiff  ?  On  the 
contrary,  they  sent  Wilfrid  to  prison  for  having  car- 
ried his  cause  to  Rome. 

The  attitude  taken  by  William  the  Conqueror  tow- 
ard the  Papal  See  was  no  less  striking  and  instruc- 
tive.    The  Roman  bishop  had  a  considerable  claim 


>ITV 


I     UN  ^' * 


THE    PEINCIPER^ii£jg^LS»OT^L    CHUBCHES  87 

upon  the  Conqueror.  When  the  great  E'orman  took 
in  hand  the  invasion  of  England,  he  gladly  availed 
himself  of  the  support  of  the  Pope.  When,  however, 
the  latter  made  demands  which  to  the  King  seemed  in- 
consistent with  his  royal  authority,  he  refused  to  give 
way.  Customary  payments,  the  arrears  of  Peter's 
pence  owing  to  the  Pope  should  be  made  good;  but 
the  homage  demanded  for  his  kingdom — and  the 
man  who  made  the  demand  was  Gregory  VII.,  the 
great  Hildebrand — he  would  in  no  way  concede. 
"Homage,"  he  said,  "I  have  never  willed  to  pay,  nor 
do  I  will  it  now.  I  have  never  promised  it,  nor  do  I 
find  that  my  predecessors  ever  did  it  to  yours."  The 
King  further  declared  that  no  Pope  was  to  be  rec- 
ognized without  the  approval  of  the  crown,  nor  any 
letters  or  bulls  from  Rome  promulgated  without  his 
consent.  'No  synods  were  to  be  held  without  his 
license,  nor  could  their  decrees  be  accepted  until  they 
had  received  his  confirmation.  There  was  the  asser- 
tion, in  the  plainest  terms,  of  the  independence  of  the 
l^ational  Church.  The  alliance  with  Rome  was  at 
that  time  recognized  as  an  advantage  and  a  benefit  to 
the  local  churches ;  and  even  we  can  understand  that 
many  advantages  accrued  to  them  through  this  union ; 
but  never,  except  in  moments  of  danger  and  difficulty, 
or  under  the  weakest  of  the  kings,  was  the  absolute 
supremacy  of  the  Roman  pontiff  recognized. 

Kever  was  the  claim  of  the  Apostolic  See  urged 
with  greater  force  and  with  more  manifest  advantage 
than  in  the  conflict  between  Pope  Innocent  III.  and 
King  John ;  and  yet  in  the  issue  the  insufficiency  of 


88  INFLUENCE   OF    THE    ENGLISH   OHUBCH 

the  papal  pretensions  was  completely  demonstrated. 
We  may,  indeed,  say  that  no  English  king  ever  sub- 
mitted to  such  humiliation,  or  even  degradation,  as  did 
John  in  his  hour  of  sore  distress ;  when,  forsaken  and 
detested  by  his  people,  he  threw  himself  upon  the  pror- 
tection  of  the  Roman  pontiff,  doing  homage  to  him 
for  his  kingdom  of  England  and  Ireland,  and  thereby 
declaring  himself  to  be  the  vassal  of  the  Pope. 
Surely,  if  there  was  any  moment  in  the  history  of  our 
people  when  there  could  be  no  sense  of  national 
ecclesiastical  independence,  that  moment  had  now 
arrived.  And  yet  it  was  not  long  before  the  national 
spirit  of  the  people  asserted  itself  in  defiance  of  the 
arrogant  pontiff  and  the  pusillanimous  king.  When 
Pope  Innocent  declared  the  barons  who  were  contend- 
ing for  the  great  charter  to  be  wicked  rebels,  and  pro- 
ceeded to  release  King  John  from  his  oath  of  con- 
firmation, they  treated  his  anathemas  with  contempt 
and  proceeded  to  assert  their  legal  rights  by  arms, 
with  Stephen  Langton  of  Canterbury,  the  nominee  of 
the  Pope  himself,  at  their  head. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  point  out  that  through 
these  ages,  from  the  time  of  the  Norman  conquest  to 
the  period  of  the  Reformation,  the  pretensions  of  the 
Roman  See  were  never  lowered ;  whilst  on  the  other 
hand  they  were  steadily  resisted  by  princes  and  peo- 
ples. Not  infrequently,  indeed,  the  popes  stood  on 
the  side  of  justice  and  humanity,  and  even  when  they 
were  most  imperious  and  domineering,  they  were 
often  animated  by  high  and  noble  motives.  But  even 
then,  and  making  all  allowance  for  the  advantages  re- 


THE   PBINCIPLE    OF    NATIONAL    CHURCHES  89 

suiting  from  alliance  with  Rome,  there  was  ever  the 
danger  of  servitude  to  a  foreign  power ;  and  the  leaders 
of  the  people  were  not  unconscious  of  the  danger. 

Those  who  could  understand  to  what  heights  the 
pretensions  of  the  Papacy  sometimes  rose,  may  see 
the  expression  of  them  in  such  papal  utterances  as 
those  contained  in  the  bulls  "Clericis  Laicos"  (a.d. 
1296)  and  "Unam  Sanctam"  (a.d.  1302)  of  Boni- 
face VIII. 

In  the  former  of  these — Clericis  Laicos — the  cler- 
gy were  forbidden,  under  pain  of  excommunication, 
to  pay  without  consent  of  the  Holy  See,  any  subsidy 
or  tax  on  any  ecclesiastical  property,  and  the  ex- 
communication was  extended  to  the  emperors,  kings,, 
or  princes  who  should  impose  such  subsidy. 

In  the  latter — ^the  bull  Unam  Sanctam — ^the  Pope 
goes  so  far  as  to  declare,  "Igitur  ecclesise  unius  et 
unicae  unum  corpus,  unum  caput,  non  duo  capita 
quasi  monstrum."  But  such  arrogance  received  an 
almost  immediate  check  from  the  civil  power;  and 
although  Boniface  proceeded  to  excommunicate  the 
king — Philip  IV.  of  France,  surnamed  the  Fair — 
the  estates  of  the  kingdom  stood  by  their  sovereign, 
declared  the  pontiff  a  criminal  and  a  heretic,  and 
proceeded  to  take  him  prisoner. 

The  course  of  affairs  in  England  is  well  known. 
Up  to  the  time  of  the  Reformation  every  aggression 
on  the  side  of  Rome  was  met  by  resistance  on  the  part 
of  the  nation,  until  finally  the  supremacy  of  the  Bishop 
of  Rome  was  denied,  and  his  primacy  became  a  dead 
letter. 


90 


INFLUENCE    OF    THE    ENGLISH   CHUKCH 


It  has  sometimes  been  said  that  the  various  acts  of 
Parliament  passed  in  England  were  acts  of  conscious 
rebellion  against  an  authority  which  they  could  not 
refuse  to  recognize ;  but  this  is  an  evident  misrepre- 
sentation. Here,  as  elsewhere,  the  English  Parlia- 
ment were  watching  over  their  national  rights  and 
liberties.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  they  were  ready  to  re- 
sist encroachments  and  to  oppose  to  them  the  strong 
barrier  of  the  law. 

Prominent  among  these  anti-papal  enactments  were 
the  statute  of  Provisors  (1351)  and  the  statute  of 
Prcemunire  (1353),  both  passed  in  the  reign  of  Ed- 
ward III.  and  subsequently  renewed.  Both  of  these 
statutes  were  drawn  up  for  the  purpose  of  putting  an 
end  to  manifold  abuses  resulting  from  papal  interfer- 
ence in  the  government  of  the  Church.  The  first — the 
statute  of  Provisors — forbade  the  sending  of  the  in- 
comes of  monasteries  out  of  the  kingdom,  asserted  the 
rights  of  patrons,  and  enacted  that,  in  case  of  the 
Pope  collating  to  any  office,  the  appointment  should 
be  null,  and  the  king  should  have  the  gift  for  one 
turn.  It  was  further  enacted  that  if  any  person 
should  procure  provisions  from  the  Pope,  they  were 
to  be  imprisoned  until  they  had  paid  the  fine  in  satis- 
faction of  the  king  and  the  patron  whose  rights  had 
been  invaded.  The  statute  of  Prcemunire  was,  if 
possible,  of  a  more  important  character,  striking  as 
it  did  at  the  Eoman  claim  to  overrule  the  decisions 
of  the  national  government.  The  aim  of  this  law  was 
to  prevent  vexatious  appeals  from  being  carried  to 
Eome,  in  order  to  supersede  the  authority  of  the  king's 


THE    PEINCIPLE    OF    NATIONAL    CHURCHES  91 

court  and  set  aside  its  decisions.  The  statute  there- 
fore enacted  that  if  any  English  subject  should  lodge 
any  such  plea  in  courts  not  within  the  realm,  he  should 
have  two  months'  notice  to  answer  for  contempt  in  the 
king's  court;  and  if  he  did  not  appear,  he  should  be 
outlawed,  his  property  confiscated,  and  his  person  im- 
prisoned during  the  king's  pleasure. 

It  is  quite  true  that  these  statutes  were  not  imme- 
diately or  generally  enforced.  But  they  showed  con- 
clusively the  view  taken  by  Englishmen  of  their  eccle- 
siastical position  and  of  their  relation  to  the  other 
churches,  and  they  remained  on  the  statute  books, 
ready  to  bear  fruit  in  the  future. 

When  we  turn  our  attention  to  the  period  of  the 
Reformation,  we  can  see  at  once  how  the  measures 
then  taken  find  their  explanation  and  their  justifica- 
tion in  the  principles  which  had  been  operative 
throughout  the  whole  history  of  the  Anglican  Church, 
even  although  they  may  not  always  have  been  con- 
sciously held.  It  is  no  part  of  our  duty  to  defend  the 
character  or  the  conduct  of  King  Henry  VIII.  But 
it  must  be  clearly  understood  that  the  attitude  finally 
taken  by  him  and  the  country  rested,  and  found  its 
justification,  in  the  principle  of  the  legislation  which 
restrained  the  authority  of  the  Roman  See  within 
the  Kingdom  of  England.  There  was  a  question  con- 
fronting the  mind  and  conscience  of  Christendom  as 
it  had  never  done  before,  and  this  a  question  which 
had  to  be  answered.  The  question  was  this:  "Has 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  given  to  the  Bishop  of  Rome 
supreme  authority  over  all    parts  of    the  Christian 


92  INFLUENCE   OF    THE   ENGLISH   OHUECH 

Church  ?  Does  one  who  resists  the  authority  of  the 
Roman  pontiff  endanger  his  everlasting  salvation? 
Must  we  say  that  he  who  is  out  of  Peter  is  out  of 
Christ?"  This  was  the  question  which  was  heing 
asked  in  Germany,  in  France — even  in  Italy  and 
Spain.  This  was  the  question  which  had  to  be  an- 
swered by  the  English  king  and  people,  by  the  Eng- 
lish clergy  and  laity.  It  was  not  quite  so  easy  for 
many  men  to  answer  the  question  in  those  days  as 
it  is  in  our  own.  But  it  received  its  answer  slowly, 
firmly,  certainly. 

On  March  31, 1534,  the  Convocation  of  Canterbury 
declared  that  the  Roman  bishop  has  no  greater  juris- 
diction given  to  him  by  God  in  this  kingdom  than 
any  other  foreign  bishop ;  and  the  same  doctrine  has 
been  held  ever  since  by  the  descendants  of  the  men 
by  whom  it  was  then  promulgated.  True,  there  was 
a  brief  interval  of  ^ve  years  when  the  English  people 
seemed  to  return  to  the  Roman  obedience  and  to  re- 
nounce the  idea  of  national  independence;  but,  even 
in  this  short  period,  that  very  Mary  Tudor,  who  sacri- 
ficed so  much  for  the  Holy  See,  fell  back  on  the  anti- 
Roman  legislation  of  her  forefathers,  and  warned  the 
papal  legate  that  he  was  not  to  set  foot  on  the  shores 
of  England,  and  that,  if  he  did  so,  she  would  bring 
Mm,  and  all  who  should  acknowledge  his  authority, 
under  the  penalties  of  the  statute  of  Prcemunire. 

While  we  thus  maintain  the  principle  of  a  national 
Church,  and  deny  that  such  a  position  involves  the 
slightest  disloyalty  to  Christ  or  the  Gospel,  we  have 
no  thought  of  interfering  with  the  liberties  of  those 


THE   PEINCIPLE    OF    NATIONAL    CHURCHES  93 

who  find  in  the  Roman  communion  a  satisfaction 
which,  they  say,  they  could  not  obtain  among  our- 
selves. But,  for  ourselves,  we  have  no  doubt  of  the 
lawfulness  of  our  position,  and  we  believe  that  the 
blessing  of  God  has  rested  and  does  rest  and  will  rest 
upon  the  work  which  we  purpose  and  endeavor  to  do 
for  Him. 

And,  further,  we  are  fully  assured  that  our  posi- 
tion, as  that  of  a  national  Church,  a  church  which, 
while  claiming  to  be  truly  catholic,  yet  also  represents 
the  spiritual  side  of  the  great  race  to  which  we  belong 
— we  believe  that  this  position  is  defensible,  not  only 
on  theoretical  grounds,  but  also  and  equally  on 
grounds  of  experience.  [At  this  point  we  are  re- 
minded that  we  are  intruding  into  ground  already 
occupied  by  previous  speakers  in  this  course ;  so  that 
our  remarks  must  be  restricted.]  Yet  we  believe  that, 
in  no  spirit  of  boastfulness,  but  with  hearts  full  of 
gratitude  to  the  Giver  of  all  good,  we  may  acknowl- 
edge the  blessings  secured  to  our  people  by  the  Eng- 
lish Reformation.  The  English  Reformation  has 
made  the  modern  English  people.  The  Christian 
Church,  as  reformed  among  the  English  people,  has 
given  to  the  world  a  type  of  character  without  which 
mankind  would  have  been  poorer. 

It  was  said  of  the  worshippers  of  the  heathen  dei- 
ties, that  they  made  gods  in  their  own  image;  and 
that,  on  the  other  hand,  they  reflected  the  characters 
of  the  gods  whom  they  worshipped.  Something  anal- 
ogous to  this  has  taken  place  in  the  types  of  religion 
developed  among  the  different  nations  of  the  earth; 


94  INFLUENCE   OF    THE   ENGLISH   CHUKCH 

and  so  it  has  been  with  our  own  people.  If  we  com- 
pare the  different  types  of  reformation  followed  by 
the  different  nations  of  Europe,  we  shall  see  how  the 
national  character  of  the  people  was  represented  in 
their  Church,  and  how  the  spirit  of  the  Church  re- 
acted upon  the  character  of  the  people.  So  it  has  been 
in  a  remarkable  degree  among  ourselves.  The  sober 
moderation,  the  balanced  judgment,  the  freedom  from 
prejudice,  the  love  of  liberty — all  these  qualities 
which  have  distinguished  our  forefathers,  have  been 
reproduced  in  our  Church ;  whilst,  in  turn,  the  Church 
has  become  our  teacher  and  our  guide  and  the  moulder 
of  our  character. 

Those  who  have  read  the  "^N^otes  on  England"  by 
the  late  M.  Taine — a  man  who  understood  our  people 
as  few  foreigners  have  ever  done — must  have  been 
struck  by  his  criticisms  of  our  national  religion.  We 
are  not  altogether  admirable  in  the  eyes  of  the  brill- 
iant and  accomplished  Frenchman;  but  he  declares 
that  the  sermons  of  our  parish  clergy,  although  not 
distinguished  by  the  rhetorical  grace  of  the  Erench 
orators,  are  probably  more  practically  useful ;  and  he 
notes  that  it  is  probably  from  recitation  of  the  Psalms 
in  our  public  worship  that  we  owe  that  deep  sense  of 
righteousness  which  is  one  of  our  characteristics  as 
a  nation.  "Thanks  be  to  God  for  His  unspeakable 
gift."  "!N"ot  unto  us,  O  Lord,  not  unto  us,  but  unto 
thy  Name  give  the  glory." 

It  is  in  no  spirit  of  vainglory  that  we  contemplate 
the  past  or  the  present,  or  look  forward  to  the  future ; 
;but  with  a  deep  sense  of  responsibility  and  with  an 


THE    PKINCIPLE    OF    NATIONAL    CHURCHES  95 

earnest  prayer  that  we  may  not  be  unworthy  of  our 
privileges,  or  of  those  who,  under  God,  have  procured 
these  privileges  for  us. 

There  is  a  beautiful  saying,  taken  from  Euripides 
(Tr.  695) — XirdpTf^v  eXaxe^,  Keivrjv  Koa/iei, — ^better 
known  under  its  Latin  form,  "Spartam  nactus  es, 
banc  orna'';  that  is,  "You  have  got  Sparta;  adorn 
it."  May  we  not  apply  these  words  to  ourselves? 
We  are  members  of  the  great  Anglican  Communion. 
It  came  to  us  by  no  merit  or  act  of  our  own.  Let 
us  see  that  we  hand  it  on  unimpaired,  strengthened, 
adorned,  to  the  generations  that  shall  come  after  us. 

This  is  the  work  which  is  now  assigned  to  us  by  the 
providence  of  God.  It  is  not  by  mere  words,  however 
fitting  and  excellent,  that  the  work  is  to  be  done — 
not  by  language  of  self -congratulation,  or  even  of  sin- 
cere thanksgiving  for  the  blessings  of  the  past  that  the 
future  of  our  Church  and  our  people  is  to  be  made 
secure.  It  is  by  the  actual  working  out  of  the  prin- 
ciples of  truth  and  righteousness  and  consecration  to 
worthy  ideals  in  thought  and  word  and  deed.  It  is  by 
calm,  persistent  devotion  to  duty,  the  fulfilment  of 
duty  to  God  and  to  man ;  by  loyalty  to  our  Father  in 
Heaven  and  our  brethren  upon  earth.  For  this  we 
must  labor ;  for  this  we  must  pray ;  nor  shall  we  labor 
and  pray  in  vain,  "Then  shall  the  earth  bring  forth 
her  increase ;  and  God,  even  our  own  God,  shall  give 
us  His  blessing."     . 


LECTURE  V 

€&e  €l)urtl)  anti  tfyt  spirit  of  atBettp 


LECTURE  V 

€t^t  Cfturelj  anH  tfte  J^pirtt  of  3tiBertp 

Charter  and  Instructions  of  James  I. — First  Colonial  Assem- 
bly AT  Jamestown,  1619 — Vestries,  and  their  Influence 
IN  Favor  of  Self-Go vernment — Patrick  Henry  and  Saint 
John's  Church,  Richmond— The  American  Revolution  as 
Aided  by  Members  of  the  Church  of  England — Their 
Influence  on  the  Constitution  and  the  Constructive 
Period. 

WE  cannot  say  that  the  Church  of  England, 
as  such,  was  the  leader  in  the  colonizing 
enterprises  of  the  last  part  of  the  sixteenth 
and  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  centuries.  Re- 
ligious motives  and  ecclesiastical  relations  undoubt- 
edly added  to  the  momentum,  but  it  can  scarcely  be 
held  that  they  set  the  wheels  in  motion. 

The  primary  motive  is  to  be  found,  I  think,  in  the 
natural  impulse  to  better  one's  condition,  and  in  the 
love  of  adventure.  The  long  fight  for  existence  which 
England  and  the  Netherlands  had  waged  during  more 
than  two  generations  was  ended  by  the  defeat  of  the 
Spanish  Armada  in  1588.  The  western  lands,  tow- 
ard which  for  a  hundred  years  had  been  turned  the 
longing  eyes  of  those  in  the  Old  World  who  panted 
for  a  wider  and  a  freer  air,  were  now  clear  of  the 
domination  of  the  Spaniard,  and  at  the  same  time  the 
bold  spirits  who  had  followed  Drake  and  Hawkins 
.and  the  other  sea-fighters  of  England  were  discharged 
from  their  long  service  against  Spain  and  ready  to 

99 


100  INFLUENCE    OF    THE    ENGLISH    CHURCH 

take  up  other  adventures.  The  treaty  of  peace  being 
concluded  in  1605  between  England  and  Spain,  "the 
then  only  enemy  of  our  nation  and  religion,"  it  was 
determined  by  many  in  England  to  take  advantage  of 
"this  opportunity"  for  carrying  out  Sir  Philip  Sid- 
ney's scheme  "to  check  the  dangerous  and  increasing 
power  of  Spain  and  Eome  in  the  I^I'ew  World  by  plant- 
ing English  Protestant  settlements  there,  which  would 
increase  until  they  extended  from  ocean  to  ocean." 
Thus  speaks  an  early  writer  quoted  by  Alexander 
Brown  in  his  "First  Kepublic  in  America." 

These  first  adventurers  were,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
members  of  the  Church  of  England,  the  Puritan  se- 
cession not  having  as  yet  attained  to  considerable  pro- 
portions. The  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  and  the 
Bishop  of  London  were  among  the  early  members  of 
the  London  Company  under  whose  auspices  the  first 
successful  and  enduring  attempt  at  colonization  was 
made.  Under  such  conditions  it  is  not  surprising  that 
the  charter  of  the  Colony  of  Virginia  granted  by 
James  L,  on  April  10,  1606,  declared,  as  one  of  the 
chief  motives  of  the  enterprise,  "the  furtherance  of 
so  noble  a  work"  "as  the  planting  of  Christianity 
amongst  heathens." 

In  the  instructions  of  the  king,  in  1606,  it  was 
enjoined  that  "all  persons  should  kindly  treat  the 
savages  and  heathen  people  in  these  parts,  and  use 
all  proper  means  to  draw  them  to  the  true  service 
and  knowledge  of  God." 

The  latter  part  of  the  year  1606  saw  the  colonists 
embarked  on  their  three  small  vessels,  the  Susan  Con- 


THE    CHURCH    AND    THE    SPIRIT    OF    LIBERTY       101 

stant,  the  Goodspeed,  and  the  Discovery.  I  repeat 
their  names  because  they  are  not  as  well  known  as 
they  ought  to  be;  certainly  not  as  well  as  the  May- 
flower is  known.  Rev.  Robert  Hunt  accompanied  the 
expedition  as  chaplain.  On  May  13,  1607  (old 
style),  they  disembarked  at  Jamestown,  having  en- 
tered the  Chesapeake  Bay  between  two  and  three 
weeks  earlier.  Among  the  earliest  records  of  the  new 
settlement  is  that  of  Divine  Service  by  Mr.  Hunt,  and 
on  June  21,  1607  (the  third  Sunday  after  Trinity), 
the  diarist  records,  "Wee  had  a  Comunyon."  This  is 
the  first  recorded  instance  of  the  celebration  of  that 
holy  feast  of  love  on  the  soil  of  Virginia,  and  ever 
since  then,  except  during  the  interval  of  a  few  months 
between  the  death  of  Mr.  Hunt  and  the  arrival  of  an- 
other clergyman,  there  has  been  no  intermission  in 
the  regular  administration  of  the  Lord^s  Supper 
according  to  the  use  of  the  Church  of  England  and 
its  successor,  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church. 

The  infant  colony,  during  all  the  struggles  of  its 
early  years,  seems  to  have  been  well  cared  for  by 
clergymen.  Thus,  in  1616,  as  we  learn  from  John 
Rolfe's  letter  to  King  James,  there  were  at  the  sev- 
eral settlements  351  souls  in  all,  including  four 
clergymen :  William  Wickham  at  Henrico,  Alexander 
Whitaker  at  Bermuda  Hundred,  Richard  Buck  at 
Jamestown,  and  William  Mays  at  Kecoughtan,  now 
known  as  Hampton.  That  the  mission  of  the  Church 
to  the  natives  was  still  kept  in  view  by  the  colonists 
appears  from  the  following  extract  from  this  same 
letter  of  Rolf  e. 


102  INFLUENCE    OF    THE    ENGLISH    CHUECH 

"There  is  no  small  hope  by  pietie,  clemencie,  cur- 
tesie  and  civill  demeanor,  (by  which  meanes  some  are 
wonne  to  us  alreadie*),  to  convert  and  bring  to  the 
knowledge  and  true  worship  of  Jesus  Christ  thou- 
sands of  poore,  wretched  and  misbelieving  people  on 
whose  faces  a  good  christian  cannot  looke  without  sor- 
row, pittie  and  compassion,  seeing  they  beare  the 
image  of  our  Heavenlie  Creator,  and  we  and  they 
come  from  one  and  the  same  mould." 

There  is  no  evidence  that  this  feeling  on  the  part 
of  the  colonists  toward  the  Indians,  expressed  by 
Eolfe  in  so  kindly  and  Christian  a  manner,  suffered 
any  change  until  after  the  cruel  and  deliberate  massa- 
cre by  the  Indians  in  1622. 

Here,  then,  we  have  a  colony,  promoted  and  founded 
by  members  of  the  Church  of  England  and  regularly 
ministered  to  by  her  clergy,  in  which  Christian  prin- 
ciples of  justice  and  fair  dealing  toward  others  were 
held  aloft  as  the  standard  to  which  they  should  con- 
form. 

We  have  next  to  trace  how,  in  such  a  colony,  the 
principles  of  civil  and  religious  liberty  were  worked 
out.  The  third  charter,  granted  in  1612  to  the  Lon- 
don Company,  gave  larger  powers  of  government  over 
the  colony  to  the  company,  and  those  who  were  its 
controlling  spirits  were  men  of  broad  views  and  earn- 
est interest  in  their  work.  Chief  among  them  stand 
out  the  names  of  the  Earl  of  Southampton,  the  friend 
of  Shakespeare;  Sir  Edwin  Sandys,  son  of  the 
Archbishop  of  York,  and  Nicholas  Eerrar,  afterward 
*  Rolfe  had  shortly  before  this  won  Pocahontas. 


THE    CHURCH    AND    THE   SPIRIT    OF    LIBERTY       103 

founder  of  the  monastic  establishment  of  Little  Gid- 
ding,  who  to  a  piety  of  an  almost  ascetic  type  added 
extraordinary  common  sense,  profound  study  and  re- 
flection on  the  problems  that  lay  before  the  company, 
with  constant  devotion  and  courage  in  carrying  out  its 
designs.  The  "starving  time"  was  over,  and  the  col- 
ony was  steadily  growing  in  numbers  and  strength, 
when,  in  1619,  the  company,  largely  at  the  instance 
and  following  the  plans  of  Sir  Edwin  Sandys,  caused 
writs  to  be  issued  for  a  general  assembly  of  representa- 
tive burgesses  from  the  little  hamlets  which  were 
dotted  along  each  side  of  the  James  River  from  its 
mouth  to  near  the  falls,  where  the  city  of  Richmond 
now  stands.  On  July  30,  1619,  this  House  of  Bur- 
gesses met  in  the  commodious  and  decently  appointed 
church  at  Jamestown,  which  had  succeeded  to  the  can- 
vas shelter  of  the  first  days  of  the  colony  and  the  log 
building,  which  the  settlers  had  been  careful  to  raise 
as  soon  as  Jamestown  was  made  safe  against  attack. 
The  Governor  and  Council  sat  in  the  choir,  and  the 
Burgesses,  with  their  hats  on,  according  to  the  usage 
of  Parliament,  sat  facing  them  in  the  nave.  In  this 
church  building  of  the  Church  of  England  we  find 
in  an  assembly  of  her  sons  the  first  representative 
legislative  body  of  our  race  on  this  continent,  and  the 
prototype,  not  only  in  time  but  in  spirit,  of  those 
which  were  to  follow  in  the  other  colonies.  For  in 
1624  we  find  the  General  Assembly  enacting  "That 
the  governor  shall  not  lay  any  taxes  or  impositions 
upon  the  colony,  their  lands  or  commodities,  otherway 
than  by  the  authority  of  the  general  assembly,  to  be 


104 


INFLUENCE  OF  THE  ENGLISH  CHUECH 


levied  and  employed  as  the  said  assembly  shall  ap- 
point." 

Here,  indeed,  is  the  seed  which,  one  hundred  and 
fifty  years  later,  bore  fruit  in  the  Kevolution.  A 
refusal  to  submit  to  taxation  by  the  governor  without 
the  consent  of  the  legislature,  embodies  the  principle 
of  a  like  refusal  to  taxation  by  the  king.  It  took 
time  to  grow  up  to  the  realization  that  this  was  so, 
because  the  idea  of  the  supremacy  of  the  royal  au- 
thority had  almost  a  sanctity  in  the  minds  of  Eng- 
lishmen of  that  time.  Let  us  try  to  trace  some  of  the 
steps  in  the  educational  process. 

The  Church  of  England,  as  was  natural  in  a  com- 
munity which,  as  we  have  seen,  was  composed,  al- 
most exclusively,  of  her  children,  was  the  established 
church  of  the  colony.  Following  the  precedents  of 
the  mother  country,  but  fitting  them  to  local  needs, 
a  subdivision  of  the  counties  into  parishes  was  soon 
made,  and  the  mass  of  the  parishioners  was  repre- 
sented by  a  small  body  chosen  from  their  number  as 
a  select  vestry.  These  vestries  in  Virginia,  as  also 
in  Maryland,  •after  the  establishment  there  of  the 
Church  of  England  in  1692,  in  addition  to  their  du- 
ties in  regard  to  the  Church  and  its  property,  exer- 
cised certain  functions  of  civil  government,  such  as 
the  determination  of  disputed  boundaries,  the  care 
of  orphans,  and  the  like.     ' 

Their  duty  in  regard  to  the  erection  of  suitable 
houses  of  worship  was  sedulously  performed.  Like 
David,  they  thought  shame  to  dwell  in  houses  of 
cedar  while  the  ark  of  God  rested  under  curtains. 


THE    CHTKCH    AND    THE    SPIRIT    OF    LIBERTY       105 

And  SO,  even  before  they  had  provided  elegance,  or 
even  more  than  bare  comfort  in  their  own  dwellings, 
they  raised  spacious  and  enduring  buildings  to  the 
glory  of  God.  Saint  Luke's,  Smithfield, built  in  1632, 
the  ruins  of  the  third  church  at  Jamestown,  built  in 
1639,  and  many  another  colonial  church  still  stand- 
ing in  Virginia  and  Maryland,  attest  their  pious  zeal. 
In  the  evil  state  into  which  the  clergy  in  the  col- 
onies speedily  fell,  it  became  the  duty  of  the  vestries 
to  do  more  than  have  a  care  for  the  outward  fabric 
merely,  and  to  contend  for  the  purity  of  the  Church 
and  the  preservation  of  Christian  morality.  If  the 
clergy  had  been  under  the  authority  of  a  bishop,  or 
anyone  authorized  by  him  to  administer  discipline, 
as  had  been  invariably  the  case  in  the  former  history 
of  the  Church,  such  questions  could  not  have  arisen. 
In  the  colonies,  however,  for  more  than  one  hundred 
and  seventy-five  years  from  the  settlement  at  James- 
town— if  we  leave  out  of  account  the  irregular  and 
secret  ministrations  of  Talbot  and  Welton  of  the  Con- 
juring line — ^no  bishop  ever  set  his  foot;  the  com- 
missaries had  no  substantial  authority ;  the  induction, 
and  often  the  presentation,  to  a  parish  was  in  the 
hands  of  the  governor,  and  the  result  was  that  a 
clergyman,  once  presented  and  inducted,  was  secure 
in  the  enjoyment  of  the  emoluments  of  his  parish, 
although  he  might  be  a  notorious  evil-liver.  Exam- 
ples of  devoted,  pious,  and  well-learned  clergymen 
were  not  lacking,  but  Bishop  Meade  and  Dr.  Hawks 
have  not  overstated  the  painful  truth  when  they  as- 
sert that  a  large  number  of  the  colonial  clergy  were 


106  INFLUENCE   OF    THE   ENGLISH   CHUECH 

unfit  to  exercise  the  Christian  ministry,  while  some 
were  steeped  in  gross  vice.  The  very  life  of  the 
Church,  as  a  means  of  godliness,  was  at  stake,  and 
it  is  creditable  to  her  teaching  and  her  influence  that 
her  children  rose  up  to  contend  against  these  un- 
worthy pastors.  Their  form  of  worship,  often  car- 
ried on  in  the  houses  of  the  pious  laity,  provided 
for  the  hearing  of  God's  word  in  its  completeness, 
and  furnished,  as  vehicles  for  their  devotion,  prayers 
which  had  gathered  from  all  the  ages  the  true  spirit 
of  reverence,  of  godly  fear,  and  of  aspiration  toward 
righteousness;  and  thus,  in  default  of  the  ministra- 
tions of  a  proper  or  sufficient  body  of  clergy,  they 
were  yet  built  up  in  God's  holy  faith. 

Along  with  this  went  a  struggle  for  the  right  of 
the  people,  through  their  vestries,  to  choose  their  own 
ministers,  and,  as  many  colonial  records  show,  the 
whole  period  is  full  of  contests  against  the  clergy, 
the  commissaries,  and  the  governors,  on  this  point. 
Sometimes  these  conflicts  went  beyond  wordy  wars 
and  formal  protests  to  the  authorities  in  England. 
Thus  Bishop  Meade  tells  us  that  one,  "a  man  of  great 
physical  powers,  who  ruled  his  vestry  with  a  rod  of 
terror,  wished  something  done,  and  convened  them  for 
that  purpose.  It  was  found  that  they  were  unwill- 
ing or  unable  to  do  it.  A  quarrel  ensued.  From 
words  they  came  to  blows,  and  the  minister  was  vic- 
torious. Perhaps  it  is  fair  to  presume  that  only  a 
part — perhaps  a  small  part — of  the  vestry  was  pres- 
ent. On  the  following  Sabbath  the  minister  justified 
what  he  had  done,  in  a  sermon  from  a  passage  of 


THE    CHURCH   AND    THE   SPIEIT    OF    LIBERTY       107 

ITehemiah :  'And  I  contended  with  them,  and  cursed 
them,  and  smote  certain  of  them,  and  plucked  oS 
their  hair.'  This  account,"  says  the  Bishop,  "I  re- 
ceived from  two  old  men  of  the  congregation,  of  the 
most  unimpeachable  veracity,  one  or  both  of  whom 
was  present  at  the  sermon." 

Other  cases  may  be  cited  from  Maryland.  On  May 
4,  1684  (Md.  Archives,  xvii.  264),  Eev.  Dr.  Wm. 
MuUett  complains  to  the  Lord  Proprietor,  that  Fran- 
cis Maiden,  of  Calvert  County,  carpenter,  had  refused 
his  demand  of  the  key  of  the  church  door.  He  says : 
"I  urged  unto  him  my  ordination  lycense,  and  Institu- 
tion ;  his  answer  unto  me  was,  that  neither  the  King 
or  Bishop  of  London  should  have  to  doe  in  the  dis- 
poseing  or  settling  a  minister  in  their  Church." 
Maiden  was  apprehended  and  brought  before  the 
Council,  when  he  made  submission  and  entered  into 
bond  for  good  behavior. 

The  name  of  the  Rev.  Bennett  Allen  has  a  bad 
eminence  among  the  colonial  clergy  of  Maryland,  and 
in  the  recent  novel  of  Richard  Carvel  he  is  a  con- 
spicuous figure.  He  came  to  Maryland  with  instruc- 
tions from  his  particular  friend,  the  corrupt  Lord 
Baltimore,  who  was  then  regnant,  to  be  well  pro- 
vided for.  He  prepared  long  and  elaborate  argu- 
ments to  show  that  the  Maryland  law  against  plurali- 
ties was  invalid,  and  that  he  was  entitled  to  hold  the 
livings  of  two  parishes,  not  adjacent,  at  the  same 
time.  Pending  this  controversy,  he  heard  of  the  seri- 
ous illness  of  the  incumbent  of  All  Saints'  Parish, 
Frederick  County,  which  yielded  £800  sterling  per 


108 


INFLUENCE    OF    THE    ENGLISH    CHUKCH 


annum,  and  had  himself  inducted  immediately  upon 
the  death  of  the  former  rector,  so  as  to  forestall  the 
action  of  the  parishioners,  who  wished  to  divide  this 
enormous  parish.  This  is  the  account  which,  in  June, 
1768,  he  gives  Governor  Sharpe  of  what  followed. 
(Md.  Archives.  Correspondence  of  Gov.  Sharpe,  iii. 
501.)  "On  Saturday  I  got  the  Keys  went  into  the 
Church  read  Prayers  the  39  Articles*  &  my  Induc- 
tion. On  Sunday  having  heard  that  the  Locks  were 
taken  off  &  the  Door  bolted  within  I  got  up  at  four 
oclock  &  by  the  Assistance  of  a  Ladder  unbolted  them 
getting  in  at  a  Window  &  left  them  on  the  Jar.  I 
went  at  10  oclock  &  found  all  the  Doors  &  Windows 
open.  The  Vestry  came  up  to  me  &  spoke  to  me  of 
Breach  of  Privilege.  I  said  I  am  not  acquainted  with 
Customs  I  act  by  the  Letter  of  the  Law.  The  moment 
the  Gover''  signs  an  Induction,  Your  Power  ceases, 
I  am  sorry  that  any  Dissention  &c.  I  saw  they  drew 
to  the  Doors  of  the  Church.  I  got  a  little  Advantage 
leap't  into  the  Desk  &  made  my  Apology  &  begun  the 
service.  The  Congregation  was  call'd  out.  I  pro- 
ceeded as  if  nothing  had  happened  till  the  Second 
Lesson.  I  heard  some  Commotions  from  without 
which  gave  me  a  little  Alarm  &  I  provided  luckily 
against  it  or  I  must  have  been  maim'd  if  not  murderM. 
they  caird  a  number  of  their  Bravest  that  is  to  say 
their  largest  Men  to  pull  me  out  of  the  Desk  I  let  the 
Captain  come  within  two  Paces  of  me  &  clapt  my 
Pistol  to  his  Head.  What  Consternation !  they  ac- 
cuse me  of  swearing  by  God  I  wo^  shoot  him,  &  I 
*  This  was  a  requisite  in  the  induction  proceedings. 


THE    CHUECH    AND    THE    SPIRIT    OF    LIBERTY       109 

believe  I  did  swear,  w'^^  was  better  than  praying  just 
then." 

Bishop  Meade's  summing  up  of  the  effects  of  such 
quarrels  as  these  is  fully  justified.    He  says : 

"In  the  history  of  the  vestries  we  may  fairly  trace 
the  origin,  not  only  of  that  religious  liberty  which 
afterward  developed  itself  in  Virginia,  but  also  of  the 
early  and  determined  stand  taken  by  the  Episco- 
palians of  Virginia  in  behalf  of  civil  liberty.  The 
vestries,  who  were  the  intelligence  and  moral  strength 
of  the  land,  had  been  trained  up  in  the  defence  of 
their  rights  against  governors  and  bishops,  kings, 
queens,  and  cabinets.  They  had  been  slowly  fighting 
the  battles  of  the  Kevolution  for  a  hundred  and  fifty 
years.  Taxation  and  representation  were  only  other 
words  for  support  and  election  of  ministers.  The 
principle  was  the  same.  It  is  not  wonderful,  there- 
fore, that  we  find  the  same  men  who  took  the  lead  in 
the  councils  and  armies  of  the  Eevolution  most  active 
in  the  recorded  proceedings  of  the  vestries." 

It  is  not  strange  that  as  a  result  of  these  frequent 
contests  there  should  have  been  a  growing  feeling 
against  the  right  of  the  clergy  to  hold  office  as  of 
Divine  right.  Probably  no  one  questioned  that  orders 
in  the  Church  were  of  Divine  appointment.  But  that 
a  man  who  had  received  such  orders  should  be  entitled 
to  leadership  in  a  Christian  community,  even  though 
his  life  might  be  notoriously  un-Christian  and  im- 
moral, was  shocking  alike  to  reason  and  to  faith. 
When  people  began  to  question  the  Divine  authority 
of  a  vicious  clergyman,  it  was  a  natural  consequence 


110 


INFLUENCE   OF    THE   ENGLISH   CHUECH 


that  there  should  be  searchings  of  heart  as  to  the 
Divine  right  of  kings,  a  dogma  which,  as  a  rule,  was 
strenuously  and  frequently  urged  by  the  clergy.  Dur- 
ing the  time  of  the  Stuart  kings  the  association  of  the 
two  dogmas  was  marked.  Lecky,  in  his  "History  of 
England  in  the  Eighteenth  Century,"  quotes  from 
Bolingbroke  a  keen  criticism  of  such  teaching : 

"As  kings  have  found  the  great  effects  wrought  in 
government  by  the  empire  which  priests  obtain  over 
the  consciences  of  mankind,  so  priests  have  been 
taught  by  experience  that  the  best  way  to  preserve 
their  own  rank,  dignity,  wealth,  and  power,  all  raised 
upon  a  supposed  Divine  right,  is  to  communicate  the 
same  pretension  to  kings,  and,  by  a  fallacy  common 
to  both,  impose  their  usurpations  on  a  silly  world. 
This  they  have  done;  and  in  the  state  as  in  the 
Church,  these  pretensions  to  a  Divine  right  have  been 
carried  highest  by  those  who  have  had  the  least  pre- 
tension to  the  Divine  favor."  {The  Idea  of  a 
Patriot  King.) 

At  the  time  of  the  Protestant  Kevolution,  in  1688, 
two  English  bishops,  Hoadly  and  Warburton,  in 
treatises  of  great  force,  led  the  opposition  to  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Divine  Eight  of  Kings,  and  when  the 
Georges  came  in,  the  acceptance  of  the  doctrine  by  the 
clergy  was  much  diminished.  That  which  was  clear 
to  their  minds  under  a  Stuart,  seemed  doubtful  under 
a  king  of  the  House  of  Hanover.  In  the  free  air  of 
the  colonies  it  never  throve.  To  the  dwellers  there, 
remote  from  the  pomps  which  expressed  the  power 
of  kings,  and  learning  by  their  contests  with  savage 


THE    CHUECH   AND    THE   SPIRIT    OF    LIBERTY       111 

men  and  wild  nature  the  dignity  and  force  of  their 
own  personality ;  to  men  who,  in  the  order  appointed 
by  their  Church  for  the  daily  worship  of  God,  con- 
stantly heard  that  His  "service  is  perfect  freedom," 
it  may  well  have  seemed  that,  as  Emerson  has  ex- 
pressed it: 

"  God  said,  I  am  tired  of  kings 
1  suffer  them  no  more : 

My  angel — his  name  is  Freedom — 
Choose  him  to  be  your  king." 

Other  methods  of  dealing  with  unworthy  clergy- 
men being  wanting,  the  people  resorted  to  a  method 
which  affected  the  good  and  the  bad  alike — the  dimi- 
nution of  their  emoluments  by  altering  the  tobacco 
tax  levied  for  their  support,  either  by  lowering  the 
amount  or  debasing  the  valuation.  A  series  of  con- 
tests over  such  laws  went  on  for  years,  the  culmina- 
tion of  them  being  a  law  passed  by  the  General  Assem- 
bly of  Virginia  in  175 8,  which,  however,  within  a 
year  or  two,  was  vetoed  by  the  King.  Out  of  this  grew 
the  famous  "parsons  case"  in  1Y63,  in  which  a  young 
Virginian,  son  of  a  member  of  the  established  Church, 
and  nephew  of  one  of  its  clergy,  sprang  into  a  position 
of  prominence  in  the  colony  and  throughout  America, 
which  he  held  and  increased  all  through  his  life. 
Moses  Coit  Tyler,  in  his  comparatively  recent  biog- 
raphy of  Patrick  Henry,  one  of  the  most  fascinating 
biographies  of  the  nineteenth  century,  has  given  us 
an  intelligible  account  of  this  case,  as  to  which  former 
lives  of  Henry  had  made  nothing  clear,  except  his 


112  INFLUENCE   OF    THE   ENGLISH   CHTJECH 

marvellous  power  of  swaying  the  minds  of  men  by 
the  spoken  word.  It  thus  appears  that  the  court  had 
decided,  as  it  was  bound  to  do,  that  the  royal  veto 
had  nullified  the  Act  of  1758  and  that  the  salaries 
were  payable  as  under  the  old  law.  All  that  remained 
was  for  a  jury  to  fix  the  amount  due,  and  when  Pat- 
rick Henry  induced  the  jury  to  bring  in  a  verdict  for 
one  penny,  it  was  on  the  bold  and  theretofore  unde- 
clared ground  that  the  king  had  no  right  to  veto  a  law 
passed  in  the  interest  of  the  people,  and  that  he,  "by 
disallowing  acts  of  this  salutary  nature,  from  being 
the  father  of  his  people,  degenerated  into  a  tyrant  and 
forfeits  all  right  to  his  subjects'  obedience."  Such 
talk  as  this  had  doubtless  been  for  years  whispered  in 
gatherings  of  two  or  three  bold  spirits ;  this  was  the 
first  occasion  that  I  know  of  in  any  of  the  colonies, 
where  it  was  proclaimed  in  a  public  place. 

I  think  no  one  will  rise  from  the  perusal  of  Tyler's 
"Life  of  Henry"  without  feeling  convinced  that  not 
only  was  he  the  greatest  orator  who  ever  spoke  the 
English  tongue,  but  that,  more  than  all  others,  North 
or  South,  he  was  the  mainspring  of  the  Revolution. 
In  the  session  of  the  House  of  Burgesses  in  1765,  the 
first  which  he  attended,  he  succeeded  in  carrying, 
against  the  prejudices  of  a  majority  of  the  members, 
a  set  of  resolutions  which  clearly  declared  that  no  tax 
could  be  levied  in  the  colony  without  the  consent  of 
the  General  Assembly.  Similar  language  had  been 
used  in  other  colonies,  by  way  of  protest,  before  the 
Stamp  Act  was  passed ;  these  resolutions  were  epoch- 
making,  because  they  were  adopted  after  the  passage 


THE    CHURCH    AND    THE    SPIRIT    OF    LIBERTY       113 

of  that  Act.  After  he  had  gone  home  the  counsels  of 
the  timid  prevailed,  and  the  last  resolution,  which 
contained  the  pith  of  the  argument,  was  rescinded. 
But  meanwhile  swift  couriers  had  carried  north  and 
south  the  resolutions  as  first  adopted,  and  they  served 
as  a  torch  to  the  smouldering  fires  which  had  been 
sleeping  in  men's  bosoms.  Thus,  in  November,  1765, 
in  Frederick  County,  Maryland,  the  scene  of  Rev. 
Bennett  Allen's  conflict  three  years  later,  the  county 
court  declared  that  the  Stamp  Act  was  invalid  and 
directed  its  clerk  to  use  and  accept  unstamped  paper 
for  legal  purposes. 

Ten  more  years  of  agitation  and  appeal  to  England 
followed,  and  then,  in  1775,  at  the  Revolutionary  As- 
sembly which,  in  defiance  of  the  Governor  at  Wil- 
liamsburg, met  in  Saint  John's  Church,  Richmond, 
Henry  made  that  great  argument  for  armed  resist- 
ance and  that  splendid  appeal  for  liberty  which  grows 
upon  us  the  more  its  thrilling  cadences  fall  upon  the 
ear.  'No  speech  that  was  ever  made  in  any  part  of  the 
world  has  produced,  in  my  judgment,  such  instant, 
such  momentous,  and  such  abiding  results. 

I  have  told  how  the  first  legislative  assembly  that 
ever  sounded  the  note  of  freedom  in  America  met  in 
the  church  at  Jamestown  in  1619.  It  is  a  matter  of 
the  deepest  interest  and  significance  that  in  another 
of  the  sacred  buildings  of  our  Church  and  from  the 
lips  of  one  of  her  devout  members  was  heard  this 
second  cry  for  liberty,  the  clarion  call  which  roused 
the  colonies  to  the  point  of  taking  arms  against  op- 
pression.    To  some  it  may  savor  of  irreverence  to 


114  INFLUENCE    OF    THE   ENGLISH    CHUECH 

God's  house  that  it  should  be  used  for  such  purposes. 
We  have,  however,  from  Divine  lips  the  statement 
that  ^'the  Sabbath  was  made  for  man,"  and  surely 
this  includes  the  teaching  that  the  houses  as  well  as 
the  day  set  apart  for  God's  worship,  shall,  in  case  of 
need,  be  used  for  any  service  to  humanity.  In  the 
little  town  of  Richmond,  where  the  Revolutionary 
Assembly  of  Virginia  met,  there  was  no  building  so 
suitable  for  the  gathering  as  the  church,  and  I  rejoice 
that  no  spot  in  this  land  has  such  close  associations 
with  the  sacred  cause  of  liberty  as  has  Saint  John's, 
Church  Hill. 

The  pre-eminence  of  Patrick  Henry  as  the  apostle 
of  liberty,  as  well  as  his  transcendent  sagacity  and 
power,  have  led  me  to  speak  of  him  at  some  length. 
He  has  by  some,  on  imperfect  information,  been 
thought  of  as  merely  a  speech-maker.  But  the  world 
will  judge  him  hereafter  as  he  was  judged  by  his 
contemporaries.  He  was  thrice  during  the  Revolution 
governor  of  Virginia,  and,  after  the  Constitution  was 
adopted,  Washington — an  imsurpassed  judge  of  char- 
acter— successively  offered  him  the  positions  of  En- 
voy to  France,  Secretary  of  State,  and  Chief -Justice 
of  the  Supreme  Court,  which  his  failing  health  com- 
pelled him  to  decline. 

I  must  speak  now  of  others,  like  him,  members  of 
the  Established  Church,  and  many  of  them  vestry- 
men, who  stood  for  the  cause  of  liberty  without  falter- 
ing. Washington  is  first  of  all.  But  where  would 
the  cause  of  the  colonies  have  been;  nay,  would  the 
issue  have  been  raised  at  all  without  their  help  ?    I 


THE   CHUECH   AND    THE   SPIRIT    OF    LIBERTY       115 

can  only  refer  to  George  Mason,  Richard  Henry  Lee, 
Wythe,  Pendleton,  Jefferson,  and  Harrison  in  Vir- 
ginia; Rutledge  and  Pinckney  in  South  Carolina; 
Chase  and  Johnson  in  Maryland;  Clymer,  Wilson, 
and  Morris  in  Pennsylvania ;  Read  in  Delaware ;  and 
others  in  less  conspicuous  station  who  kept  the  spirit 
of  liberty  alive  and  glowing  in  their  several  com- 
munities throughout  those  trying  years. 

It  was  George  Mason,  a  fellow-vestryman  with 
Washington  at  old  Pohick  Church,  who,  in  the  Dec- 
laration of  Rights  prepared  by  him  in  1775  for  Vir- 
ginia, and  afterward,  in  substance,  made  a  part  of  the 
organic  law  of  nearly  all  the  States,  set  forth  in  a  form 
of  sound  words  the  principle  of  a  free  church  in  a 
free  state. 

"That  Religion,  or  the  Duty  which  we  owe  to  our 
Creator  and  the  manner  of  discharging  it,  can  be  di- 
rected only  by  Reason  and  Conviction,  not  by  Porce 
or  Violence ;  and  therefore  that  all  men  should  enjoy 
the  fullest  Toleration  in  the  Exercise  of  Religion,  ac- 
cording to  the  Dictates  of  conscience,  unpunished  and 
unrestrained  by  the  Magistrate ;  unless  under  Colour 
of  Religion,  any  Man  disturb  the  Peace,  the  Happi- 
ness, or  the  Safety  of  Society ;  and  that  it  is  the  mu- 
tual Duty  of  all  to  practice  Christian  Forbearance, 
Love  and  Charity  Towards  each  other." 

Pollowing  this  up,  in  1785,  Jefferson  prepared  the 
Statute  of  Virginia  "of  religious  freedom,"  which  he 
directed  should  be  mentioned  in  his  epitaph  along 
with  the  authorship  of  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence and  the  founding  of  the  University  of  Virginia, 


116  INFLUENCE   OF    THE   ENGLISH   CHUKCH 

as  those  acts  of  his  life  by  which  he  was  willing  to  be 
judged  by  posterity.  No  sentence  that  he  ever  wrote 
is  more  pregnant  with  salutary  influence  than  one 
which  I  quote  from  this  famous  statute : 

"That  truth  is  great  and  will  prevail,  if  left  to  her- 
self;  that  she  is  the  proper  and  sufficient  antagonist 
to  error,  and  has  nothing  to  fear  from  the  conflict, 
unless,  by  human  interposition,  disarmed  of  her  natu- 
ral weapons,  free  argument  and  debate;  errors  ceas- 
ing to  be  dangerous  when  it  is  permitted  freely  to 
contradict  them." 

The  war,  for  some  seven  years  of  doubtful  issue, 
at  length  was  brought  to  a  successful  close.  There 
followed  seven  years  of  adjustment  to  the  new  rela- 
tions; of  building  up  the  States  whose  foundations 
had  been  strongly,  if  hastily,  laid  at  the  time  of  the 
separation ;  of  striving  for  a  more  perfect  union.  In 
all  this  constructive  work  the  sons  of  our  beloved 
Church  bore  their  part  as  faithfully  as  they  had  done 
during  the  stress  of  war.  About  two-thirds  of  the 
members  of  the  convention  which  framed  the  Consti- 
tution of  the  United  States  were  members  of  the 
Episcopal  Church.  Some  of  them  I  have  already 
named  in  connection  with  the  Revolution.  I  may 
mention  in  addition,  Alexander  Hamilton  of  New 
York,  James  Madison  of  Virginia,  Rufus  King  of 
Massachusetts,  William  Samuel  Johnson  of  Connecti- 
cut, Jonathan  Dayton  of  New  Jersey. 

It  is  beyond  the  limits  of  this  discussion  to  weigh 
the  work  of  these  men  against  that  of  others,  of  dif- 
fering forms  of  religious  belief,  who,  in  all  the  col- 


THE    CHURCH    AND    THE    SPIRIT    OF    LIBERTY       117 

onies,  through  the  Revolution  and  the  period  of  the 
establishment  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  maintained  the  cause  of  a  well-ordered  liberty. 
It  may  be  that  some  may  question  the  statement  that 
the  influence  of  the  churchmen  whom  I  have  named 
was  predominant ;  I  think  none  can  doubt,  from  the 
recital  of  facts  which  I  have  given,  that  they  were 
the  leaders,  both  in  the  sense  of  being  first  to  move 
and  in  the  sense  of  being  in  command  of  the  move- 
ment. 

Along  with  the  work  on  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  went  work  to  set  the  Church  upon  the 
proper  lines.  Many  of  those  who  have  been  men- 
tioned as  active  in  the  Revolution  and  in  the  making 
of  the  Constitution  assisted  in  this,  sometimes  as 
members  of  the  gatherings  which  met  for  the  pur- 
pose ;  of tener,  perhaps,  by  their  influence  and  advice. 
!N'ow  we  see  engaging  in  this  work  the  clergy  who  had 
been  true  to  the  cause  of  the  colonies,  such  as  Provoost 
in  !N'ew  York,  and  Smith  of  Maryland.  Chief  of 
them  all  was  a  former  chaplain  of  the  Continental 
Congress,  William  White,  who,  in  my  judgment,  has 
no  superior  as  an  ecclesiastical  statesman  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  Church  universal.  "The  Church  of  Eng- 
land as  by  law  established"  had  ceased  to  exist.  By 
many  legislative  acts  of  Parliament  and  of  the  col- 
onies; by  popular  usage,  particularly  in  Maryland, 
it  had  been  known  during  the  colonial  period  as  the 
Protestant,  sometimes  as  the  Protestant  Episcopal 
Church,  and  every  one  of  the  existing  clergy,  at  his 
ordination,  had    sworn    allegiance  to  the  Protestant 


118  INFLUENCE   OF    THE   ENGLISH   CHURCH 

succession.  Protestant  was  natural  enough  as  the 
name  of  the  reconstituted  organization.  But  its  or- 
ganizers had  seen  the  evils  of  a  Church  whose  clergy 
had  episcopal  ordination  without  episcopal  over- 
sight, and  they  added  the  word  Episcopal  in  token, 
as  some  of  the  resolutions  of  the  time  indicate,  that 
the  government  of  the  Church  as  well  as  its  orders 
should  be  episcopal.  That  they  should  have  done 
this  at  a  time  when  bishops  were  by  many  thought  of 
rather  as  members  of  the  British  House  of  Lords  than 
as  the  chief  ministers  of  the  Christian  Church,  shows 
commendable  frankness,  not  to  say  courage. 

They  had  seen  the  dire  results  which  had  come  from 
the  connection  of  the  Mother  Church  with  the  state ; 
which  during  the  times  of  the  Stuarts  had  turned  the 
clergy  from  preaching  the  comfortable  Gospel  of 
Christ  to  upholding  tyranny,  and,  by  their  doctrine 
of  non-resistance,  crushing  the  spirit  of  liberty.  They 
would  none  of  this,  and  in  the  States  where  the  influ- 
ence of  the  Church  was  dominant,  putting  down  the 
proposition,  which  even  Patrick  Henry  approved,  of 
a  State  tax  for  the  support  of  religion,  equitably  di- 
vided among  the  various  denominations,  they  followed 
the  lead  of  George  Mason,  to  which  I  have  already  re- 
ferred, and  both  in  the  State  constitutions  and  in  the 
first  amendment  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  prohibited  the  establishment  of  religion  or  in- 
terference with  its  free  exercise.  It  is  interesting  to 
note  that  the  original  constitution  of  Massachusetts 
provided  that  the  legislature  should  "authorize  and 
require  the  several  towns,  etc.,  to  make  suitable  pro- 


THE    CHUBCH    AND    THE    SPIRIT    OF    LIBERTY      119 

vision,  at  their  own  expense,  for  the  institution  of  the 
public  worship  of  God,  and  for  the  support  and  main- 
tenance of  public  Protestant  teachers  of  piety,  relig- 
ion, and  morality."  It  was  not  until  1833  that  an 
amendment  was  adopted  declaring  that  "no  subordi- 
nation of  any  one  sect  or  denomination  to  another 
shall  ever  be  established  by  law."  Thus  late  did  the 
idea  of  freedom  in  religion  gain  a  footing  in  this 
Puritan  stronghold. 

Our  fathers  had  seen  the  diflSculties,  indeed  the 
anomalies,  of  the  system  of  government  of  the  Mother 
Church,  whereby,  while  the  laity  were  well-nigh  en- 
tirely shut  out  from  the  direction  of  the  Church,  even 
in  matters  of  routine  and  of  temporal  concern,  and 
the  parson,  often  presented  by  some  distant  patron 
of  the  living,  was,  as  a  corporation  sole,  vested  with 
almost  unrestricted  control,  yet,  in  the  last  resort,  the 
supreme  authority  over  the  Church  depended  upon 
laymen;  namely,  the  king  and  his  ministers  and  the 
Houses  of  Parliament ;  the  presence  of  a  certain  num- 
ber of  bishops  in  the  House  of  Lords  being  neither 
numerically  nor  virtually  a  considerable  factor  in 
legislation. 

Having  this  in  mind,  and  guided  to  a  large  extent 
by  the  considerations  which  had  weighed  with  the 
f  ramers  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  they 
established  a  system  of  government  for  the  general 
Church,  wherein  the  bishops,  the  clergy,  and  the  laity 
should  each  be  represented  in  legislation,  though  the 
perfect  equality  of  the  bishops  as  a  co-ordinate  body 
did  not  come  until  the  first  year  of  the  twentieth  cen- 


120  INFLUENCE    OF    THE    ENGLISH    CHURCH 

tury.  In  the  government  of  the  dioceses  and  of  the 
parishes  the  same  recognition  of  the  function  and 
rights  of  the  laity  obtained,  so  that  their  voice  is 
potent  in  all  questions  of  Church  government  from  the 
admission  of  candidates  for  Holy  Orders  to  the  ad- 
ministration of  the  details  of  parochial  machinery. 

As  a  result  we  have  a  system  which  Bishop  Words- 
worth, of  Saint  AndreVs,  in  his  "Outline  of  the 
Christian  Ministry,"  declares  to  be  nearer  the  model 
of  the  primitive  Church  than  any  now  existing  in  the 
world.  This,  our  goodly  heritage,  offers  us  abundant 
faculty  for  entering  into  "the  glorious  liberty  of  the 
children  of  God."  It  is  for  us  to  avail  ourselves  of  it 
in  full  measure  and  to  extend  its  privileges  as  widely 
as  possible  to  others,  remembering  with  how  great  a 
price  our  fathers  obtained  this  freedom  into  which  we 
have  been  bom. 


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